By Paul Nicholson
December 22 – As FIFA gathers votes from players, coaches and the media for its annual Ballon D’Or awards ceremony to be held January 16 in Zurich, the CIES Football Observatory has come up with its own list of the best performing big five European league players in 2015 and created, on the basis of stats analysis, the best overall team and best U23 team.
While FIFA’s big award has become an annual battle between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the CIES best team doesn’t have Ronaldo, or his club mate Gareth Bale.
In fact there are no players from Real Madrid in the first XI.
There are, however, three from Barcelona (Messi, Luis Suarez and Dani Alves), and three from Arsenal (Santi Cazorla, Mesut Özil and Nacho Monreal).
The CIES says: “If the Ballon d’Or was awarded per position, the following big-5 league players would deserve winning the trophy according to their performances in 2015: Thiago Silva (PSG), Dani Alves, İlkay Gündoğan (Dortmund), Santi Cazorla, Mesut Özil and Lionel Messi.”
FIFA has nominated Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal/Real Madrid), Lionel Messi (Argentina/FC Barcelona) and Neymar (Brazil/FC Barcelona) as the final three for the Ballon d’Or – perhaps suggesting a preference for style over substance.
Interestingly none of Gundogan, Ozil or Monreal make it on the final 55-player shortlist for the FIFA FIFPro World XI 2015 which is announced at the same time as the Ballon d’Or. The FIFA FIFPro World XI is voted for by nearly 25,000 professional footballers from about 70 different countries. They select one goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards.
For its ranking the CIES divides outfield players into six positions: centre backs, full backs, defence-oriented central midfielders, attack-oriented central midfielders, attacking midfielders and forwards. Only footballers who played at least 2,250 minutes, equivalent to 25 full big-5 league matches, were included in the rankings. Players score points across six technical areas that go to make up their ranking.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734934331labto1734934331ofdlr1734934331owedi1734934331sni@n1734934331osloh1734934331cin.l1734934331uap1734934331