There wasn’t much love for Franck Ribery from the Irish captain and Irish manager, who both had differing opinions on who should win the top award.
As he was last year, Robbie Keane was bang on the money when selecting Cristiano Ronaldo as his number one vote, which would have contributed five points to the many thousands of points we’re sure the Real Madrid star allotted on the way to what is his second Ballon d’Or award.
Robbie went for Messi in second place (worth three points) and former Spurs team-mate Gareth Bale in third (worth a single point), while new Ireland manager O’Neill went for Messi in first, Ronaldo in second and, like Keane, plumped for Bale in third.
It’s ultimately irrelevant for most people – apart from those who want to go through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that all the votes did tally up – once the award has been handed out, but the release of the ballot in full always throws up a few interesting stories, as it did last year when representatives of the Irish media failed to nominate clear winner Lionel Messi in their top three.
Paul Kelly, the Irish media representative again this year, again overlooked the eventual winner as his number one choice – he went for Ribery, Ronaldo and Messi in that order – but it was interesting to note that amongst all those entitled to vote, Ronaldo himself, for example, voted for Falcao in first, Gareth Bale in second and Mesut Ozil in third, while England captain Steven Gerrard opted for Ronaldo, Messi and Liverpool teammate Luis Suarez in that order. Belgium manager Marc Wilmots, meanwhile, didn’t include Ronaldo, Messi or Ribery in his selection, opting for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robert Lewandowski and his own player Eden Hazard instead.
You can scan through the entire ballot for yourself here and you might have more luck than ourselves in finding the name of an Irish player (apart from Robbie Keane obviously), but you might be looking for a while.
