Zinedine Zidane's top five choices for his country's best player of 2016 have now been revealed which involves some interesting yet questionable choices. Surprisingly, Zidane voted for Karim Benzema as the best French player in 2016 who was not even in the country's Euros squad in the aftermath of his ongoing sex scandal.
Antoine Griezmann won the French Footballer of the Year award and Real Madrid's manager Zidane was on the panel who decided to give him that honour. The Atletico star achieved a top three spot in the Ballon d'Or rankings as well and on top of that, national team manager Didier Deschamps has a plethora of talent at his disposal with some exciting youngsters coming to the fore recently.
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Apart from Zidane, the panel included the likes of Patrick Viera, David Ginola, Laurent Blanc and Jean-Pierre Papin and Samir Nasri. It has been an eventful year for French football as their national team reached the finals of the Euro 2016 before agonisingly losing to Portugal in the extra time.
Along with the national team, Real Madrid duo Karim Benzema and Raphael Varane won the Champions League whereas Jeremy Mathieu won the La Liga with FC Barcelona. N'golo Kante was a driving force in Leicester City's Premier League triumph last summer.
Notably, Benzema was not the only surprising choice in Real's manager top five list as Borussia Dortmund's emerging star, Ousmane Dembele was fourth in his pecking order. Dembele has been a revelation in Bundesliga since his move from Rennes and has already racked up four goals this season.
Raphael Varane was second on Zidane's list which seemed a tad bit biased as the eventual award winner Griezmann was third on the list. Real's rivalry with Atletico Madrid might have been a reason for Griezmann to occupy the third spot on Zidane's list despite having a stellar season for both club and country.
Lastly, Paul Pogba is the fifth name on Zidane's list as the midfielder is slowing regaining his touch for Manchester United. He won the double with Juventus last season but had an average Euros and a slow start to his life in Manchester. 'Zizou' as he is fondly called had himself won the French footballer of the year award twice during his playing days.
