Watch David Alaba pay a ridiculously high compliment to Arsenal’s Theo Walcott

The Ballon d’Or this year is going to be a tight one.

You’ve got Lionel Messi, who had another terrific year for Barcelona. And you’ve got Cristiano Ronaldo who, despite missing most of the final, played a crucial role in Portugal’s Euro 2016 triumph. And of course you have Theo Walcott.

OK, Theo Walcott is not actually on the level of the two La Liga superstars in the estimation of most rational-thinking adults.

But, apparently, Bayern Munich’s David Alaba is in the minority here as he, rather bizarrely, has mentioned Walcott’s name in the same breath as Messi and Ronaldo.

Messi, Ronaldo … Walcott? @FCBayern's David Alaba, Javi Martinez on the toughest players they've had to defendhttps://t.co/nxP7cOqjgA

— SI Soccer (@si_soccer) August 4, 2016

Asked to reveal the toughest opponents he has faced, the Austrian international slipped the Arsenal forward right in behind two of the greatest players to have ever played the game of football… thinking we wouldn’t notice.

But we did.

And not only did we notice, we re-watched it three times to make sure we weren’t mishearing “Neymar”.