Who did Messi, Ronaldo vote for in the FIFA awards?

Cristiano Ronaldo won his second FIFA Best men’s player of the year award in a star-studded ceremony in London.

The Portuguese was the clear winner in the voting as he won 43.16 percent of the votes while Lionel Messi came in second with 19.25 percent. Neymar was third with 6.97 percent votes.

One of the interesting event of the award ceremony is to find out who the stars themselves voted for and it turns out that Lionel Messi and Cristioano Ronaldo did not vote for each other.

Cristiano had scored 44 goals in 48 appearances for both club and country in 2017 on his way to a double with Real Madrid but he was not good enough for Leo Messi. The diminutive Argentine himself played in 52 games and scored a whopping 50 times in 2017 for both club and country.

What gave Ronaldo the edge was the La Liga and CL double -- especially the Champions League victory where Real made history by becoming the first club to retain the coveted title.

Messi voted for Luis Suarez (1st), Andres Iniesta(2nd) and Neymar (3rd). Ronaldo voted Luka Modric (1st), Sergio Ramos (2nd) and Marcelo (3rd). Thus it turns out both picked their teammates instead of voting for each other. That also somewhat reveals the very nature of the voting where the media, fans and even the players can have entrenched positions.

The voting contingent consisted of the national team captain, the national team coach and a journalist from every territory that fields a team on the international level.

Bangladesh captain Md Mamunul voted for Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi and Gianluigi Buffon. Coach Andrew Ord voted for Luis Suarez, Antoine Griezman and Gianluigi Buffon.