The strange ballots of the 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or

Since the 2011 Ballon d'Or, captains and coaches have been voting for players from their own country. Since then, many strange votes have appeared.

Out of 498 votes, Messi had 319 votes for the Golden Ball (G), Ronaldo had 100 votes and Neymar had 15 votes. Messi won the fifth Golden Ball in his career with 41.33% of the votes, Ronaldo won the Silver Ball with 27.76% and Neymar won the Bronze Ball with 7.86% of the votes.

According to the format, each vote is for three people for three positions with the corresponding scores being 5 points - 3 points - 1 point.

In the official voting results announced by FIFA, Messi, as captain of the Argentina national team, voted for his three Barcelona teammates: Suarez, Neymar and Iniesta. Similarly, Ronaldo and Neymar did not vote for themselves. Ronaldo voted for his three Real Madrid teammates: Benzema, James Rodriguez and Gareth Bale. Neymar voted for Messi, Iniesta and Rakitic.

England captain Wayne Rooney voted for Messi, Mueller and Ronaldo. England manager Roy Hodgson voted for Ronaldo, Messi and Eden Hazard.

Messi and teammate Neymar at the awards ceremony. Photo: Getty.

This year, coach Del Bosque did not show off by voting for his players in the Spanish national team. He voted for Messi, Ronaldo and Iniesta in turn. Spain captain Casillas did not participate in the vote because the Spanish Football Federation was slow in sending him the documents. The captain and coach of the Italian national team did not participate in the vote.

Since the 2011 Ballon d’Or, FIFA has allowed coaches and captains to vote for their national players. Since then, there have been many “strange” votes. Belgium captain Vincent Kompany voted for Eden Hazard, even though the player was “invisible” in the second half of 2015. Hazard was followed by Kevin de Bruyne and Messi.

Cameroon captain Mbia Etoundi Stephane showed off his votes for African representative Yaya Toure - a player who was angry at not being awarded the African Ballon d'Or, along with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Manuel Neuer.

New Zealand captain Wood Chris voted for Robert Lewandowski, Paul Pogba and De Bruyne. Poland captain Lewandowski voted for his three Bayern Munich teammates Neuer, Vidal and Mueller.

In particular, the captain of the Norwegian national team pulled Javier Mascherano to the position of the Golden Ball. Young talent Paul Pogba received one vote in the voting group of the captain and the person who voted for him was the captain of the Vanuatu national team named Masauvakalo Fenedy.

Overall, the captains who did not vote for Messi included Mile Jedinak (Australia), Christian Fuchs (Austria), Stephane Mbia (Cameroon), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Michael Mifsud (Malta), Chris Wood (New Zealand), Per Ciljan Skelbred (Norway), Robert Lewandowski (Poland), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Scott Brown (Scotland) and Diego Godin (Uruguay).

The Wales captain and coach were unanimous in voting for Gareth Bale. The Pakistan national team coach with the extremely long name Basheer Al Shamlan Mohammad Shamlan Mubarak voted for “The Bald Guy” Arjen Robben, even though Robben spent the past year mainly in the hospital.

Coaches of the top national teams have a preference for voting for their players. The most typical example is German coach Joachim Loew. He voted for Neuer, Mueller and Toni Kroos. Argentina coach Martino voted for Messi, Aguero and Mascherano.

In the top 10 best players in the world last year, it is worth noting that striker Robert Lewandowski was highly trusted. His votes accounted for 4.17%. Following the Polish striker were Luis Suarez with 3.38%, Mueller 2.21%, Neuer 1.97%, Hazard 1.33%, Iniesta 1.24% and Sanchez with 1.18%.

According to Zing