News

Uefa’s long list for 2011/12 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award has just been announced and alongside Xavi, Iniesta, Messi and Ronaldo is Leslie Davies of Bangor? Yep, we hadn’t heard of him either.

To select the 2011/12 UEFA Best Player in Europe, Uefa asked journalists from all 53 members of the footballing body to list their favourite players from one to five and those with the most points are listed here.

There are very few surprises on the list. Last year’s winner of the first ever award, Lionel Messi, is there, as is a host of the Spanish team that won Euro 2012. Mario Balotelli, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Man United new boy Shinji Kagawa also make the 32. In fact, the only oddity we can find is the inclusion of Bangor City’s Leslie Davies. Who?

We don’t know a lot about the 27-year-old  former Welsh under 21 international. His own club’s website lists him as a ‘giant winger’ and he has been voted onto the Welsh Premier League team of the season for the last two years, accoding to Bangor. Just as a point of reference here, of the 53 leagues in Europe, the Welsh Premier is ranked 46th. Ireland, for example, is 33.

A quick YouTube trawl reveals this fine header by Davies

And this effort, which could be brilliant, if we could see it

We honestly don’t know if this is a massive wind-up by the European journalists or if Davies is the next best thing we have never heard of. Maybe it is all just a massive typo, or some Bangor fan has hacked into Uefa.com. Is it possible Davies is really better than, say, Antonio Valencia, who is just one player of hundreds we can think of who could make this list?

Anyway, we suspect a man who does not have a Wikipedia page at the time of writing, will have one soon.

And just in case Uefa do change or delete the list, here's the proof it did exist.