Let’s be honest: if you’re asked to choose the three best football players on the planet, two of your choices pretty much pick themselves.
While Cristiano Ronaldo might have had the upper hand over Lionel Messi for most of this year, the Argentine didn’t exactly struggle for form throughout last season, even if it proved to be a barren one for his Barcelona team on the trophy front.
With this in mind, you can probably see why people have taken issue with England boss Gareth Southgate over his choice of players for FIFA’s best male player award.
Sure enough, he named eventual winner Cristiano Ronaldo as his first pick – but there was no room for Messi in his remaining two selections.
Instead, he voted for Ronaldo’s Real Madrid teammates – Luca Modric and Toni Kroos.
While few would argue that Modric and Kroos aren’t up there with the greatest players in world football, plenty have suggested that to pick them ahead of Messi is a bit of a strange thing for the England boss to do…
https://twitter.com/DaveJenkins56/status/922842499600867329
So Messi is not one of he top 3 players in the world according to Gareth Southgate. The bloke seriously has no clue.
— Jon Byrne (@jonbyrne5) October 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/_antxnio_/status/922779716112781312
I see Gareth Southgate didn’t include Messi or Neymar in his 3 votes for footballer of the year 🤔
— James Pollard (@Pollard027) October 24, 2017
Gareth Southgate didnt pick Lionel Messi as one of the top 3 players in the world. Staggering to think this man is leading us to a World Cup
— Jamie (@JamieCapewell) October 24, 2017
Southgate not putting messi in his top 3 players in the world and thinks modric and Kroos are ahead of him😶
— Tai Meakin (@tai_meakin) October 24, 2017
Southgate’s Messi omission wasn’t the only surprise of the voting. It also emerged that Henrikh Mkhitaryan overlooked Jose Mourinho for the FIFA best coach award with Jordan Henderson doing the same with Jürgen Klopp.
