Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi Didn't Vote for Each Other For the Ballon d'Or

Cristiano Ronaldo won his third Ballon d’Or award Monday in Zurich. Ronaldo edged out his longtime rival Lionel Messi by a fairly significant margin — 38 percent to 16 percent. German keeper Manuel Neuer finished third. As it stands, the two immortal players have claimed the last seven awards between them. To put it in beyond simplistic terms, they are both great and as soccer fans we’re lucky to watch both of them ply their trade on a weekly basis at Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Of course, the relationship between the two players is, shall we say, frosty. Or at least it’s reported that way in the media.

In turn, as captains of their respective national teams both Ronaldo (Portugal) and Messi (Argentina) have a vote for the award. Neither voted for the other. Surprisingly Ronaldo didn’t vote for himself, which leads me to believe a member of his management team probably filled out the ballot on a private jet.

The full list of the voting is available here something that would be nice if the Baseball Writers Association of America did, right? Both Ronaldo and Messi used their ballots to vote for teammates.

Ronaldo: Sergio Ramos (1st); Gareth Bale (2nd); Karim Benzema (3rd).
Messi: Angel Di Maria (1st); Andres Iniesta (2nd); Javier Mascherano (3rd).

For whatever its worth, here’s how USMNT captain Clint Dempsey and manager Jurgen Klinsmann voted.

Dempsey: Ronaldo (1st); Messi (2nd); Thomas Mueller (3rd).
Klinsmann: Manuel Neuer (1st); Cristiano Ronaldo (2nd); Arjen Robben (3rd).

On paper, the Ballon d’Or voting method sounds reasonable, as it split between national team captains, managers and one media vote per FIFA nation. Then again, the voters didn’t elect a single Atletico Madrid player into its world best XI — instead choosing David Luiz. Atletico won La Liga and made the Champions League final, primarily on the defensive backbone of Diego Godin and Miranda, while Luiz was benched by Chelsea and played during Brazil’s 7-1 loss to Germany in the World Cup semifinals.

Maybe we should just have robots vote for all awards in the future.