Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s votes for FIFA’s The Best award have been revealed

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By Scott Wilson

Published Sep 25, 2018

FIFA have revealed the votes - and they make for interesting reading

Luka Modric has broken Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s duopoly by winning FIFA’s The Best Men’s Player of the Year award.

Modric went head-to-head with Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah for the award, and all three had their own individual merits.

The 33-year-old playmaker helped Real Madrid complete a hat-trick of Champions League titles before inspiring Croatia to the World Cup final.

Ronaldo netted 15 goals in Europe last season, including a special strike against Juventus in the quarter-final.

And Salah’s debut season at Liverpool included 44 goals in all competitions and an appearance in the Champions League final.

Much was made of Lionel Messi’s absence from the three-man shortlist but success in major tournaments carries an enormous amount of weight and Modric shone on the biggest stage in 2018.

The Croatian received 29.05 per cent of the award, ahead of Ronaldo (19.08) and Salah (11.23).

Messi and Ronaldo's votes

The Best Player is decided by national team managers, national team captains, a select group of media and the fans, each of whom have a 25 per cent say in the winner.

FIFA have revealed who voted for who and the results look very interesting.

Messi’s vote

1st | Luka Modric

2nd | Kylian Mbappe

3rd | Cristiano Ronaldo

Ronaldo’s vote

1st | Raphael Varane

2nd | Luka Modric

3rd | Antoine Griezmann

So Messi voted for Ronaldo but the Juventus star didn’t return the favour.

Tactical voting is a common thing in these awards but in Messi’s case, he’s evidently voted for the three players he genuinely thought were the best in 2018.

He didn’t select any of his Barcelona teammates and even handed a vote to Ronaldo, his biggest rival.

Pretty class, that.

We’ve dug out some other interesting voting papers.