The votes for the 2015 FIFA Ballon d’Or have been tallied and while the end result of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi winning the whole thing was no surprise at all, the breakdown of the voting was much more interesting.
Three Ballon d’Or votes are distributed to each country: One for the national team’s captain, one for the national team’s coach and one for a nation’s media representative. Unsurprisingly, some players and coaches showed a degree of favoritism while others acted differently.
England manager Roy Hodgson‘s vote was Cristiano Ronaldo first, Messi second and Chelsea midfielder Eden Hazard third.
Wayne Rooney‘s vote had Messi first, Bayern Munich striker Thomas Muller second, and his former Man United teammate Ronaldo third.
Representing England in the media was Henry Winter, who selected Messi first, Ronaldo second and Barcelona’s Neymar third.
Wales manager Chris Coleman and captain Ashley Williams both picked Real Madrid and Wales superstar Gareth Bale to win the award.
As for the three finalists – all of whom are captains of their national teams and therefore were eligible to vote (but not for themselves) – their teammates were all given very strong nods.
Neymar (Brazil) picked Messi first, Luis Suarez second and Ivan Rakitic third.
Messi (Argentina), on the other hand, was less convinced of Neymar’s candidacy and chose Luis Suarez first, then Neymar and finally teammate Andres Iniesta.
Ronaldo, representing Portugal, picked three Real Madrid teammates: Karim Benzema first, James Rodriguez second, and Gareth Bale third. The Los Blancos scoring machine was the only voter to give Benzema a first-place vote.
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