2015 Ballon d'Or: Who did the national team captains vote for?

The 2015 Ballon d’Or ceremony was held in Zurich Switzerland on Monday night and Lionel Messi was crowned the best player in the world yet again. This is his fifth Ballon d’Or – a new record and one that will take some time to surpass as nobody else has more than three.

Messi was an overwhelming favourite with 41.33% of the votes while Real Madrid’s Ronaldo came in second with 27.76%. Messi’s Barcelona teammate Neymar came in third with just 7.86% of the votes.

2015 Ballon d’Or: Who did the captains vote for?

The winners of the prestigious award are voted for by national team captains of all member associations of FIFA. Not only them, even the coaches and one media representative from the respective countries vote for three players. The first player they pick is given five points, the second player three points and the third player is given one point.

Once all the votes are counted, the player with the highest points wins the FIFA Ballon d’Or. FIFA released a document with the list of all captains, coaches and media representatives from member nations and who they voted for.

We have listed a few of the famous players and who they voted for below. As has always been the case, most captains have voted either for teammates at their club or the national team. The same was witnessed last year as well when Ronaldo took home the coveted trophy.

COUNTRY	CAPTAIN	FIRST CHOICE	SECOND CHOICE	THIRD CHOICE
Argentina	Lionel Messi	Luis Suarez	Neymar	Andres Iniesta
Australia	Mile Jedinak	Cristiano Ronaldo	Robert Lewandowski	Neymar
Belgium	Vincent Kompany	Eden Hazard	Kevin De Bruyne	Lionel Messi
Bosnia & Herzegovina	Edin Dzeko	Cristiano Ronaldo	Eden Hazard	Lionel Messi
Brazil	Neymar	Lionel Messi	Luis Suarez	Ivan Rakitic
Colombia	James Rodriguez	Cristiano Ronaldo	Karim Benzema	Gareth Bale
Czech Republic	Petr Cech	Lionel Messi	Robert Lewandowski	Eden Hazard
Denmark	Daniel Agger	Lionel Messi	Cristiano Ronaldo	Luis Suarez
England	Wayne Rooney	Lionel Messi	Thomas Muller	Cristiano Ronaldo
France	Hugo Lloris	Lionel Messi	Cristiano Ronaldo	Neymar
Germany	Bastian Schweinsteiger	Manuel Neuer	Thomas Muller	Neymar
India	Sunil Chhetri	Lionel Messi	Cristiano Ronaldo	Neymar
Mexico	Andres Guardado	Lionel Messi	Cristiano Ronaldo	Neymar
Netherlands	Arjen Robben	Lionel Messi	Neymar	Luis Suarez
Poland	Robert Lewandowski	Manuel Neuer	Artuto Vidal	Thomas Muller
Portugal	Cristiano Ronaldo	Karim Benzema	James Rodriguez	Gareth Bale
Republic of Ireland	Robbie Keane	Cristiano Ronaldo	Lionel Messi	Neymar
Serbia	Branislav Ivanovic	Lionel Messi	Eden Hazard	Neymar
Sweden	Zlatan Ibrahimovic	Lionel Messi	Luis Suarez	Neymar
Turkey	Arda Turan	Lionel Messi	Neymar	Luis Suarez
Uruguay	Diego Godin	Luis Suarez	Thomas Muller	Robert Lewandowski
USA	Michael Bradley	Lionel Messi	Cristiano Ronaldo	Luis Suarez
Wales	Ashley Williams	Gareth Bale	Lionel Messi	Robert Lewandowski

Top 10 nominees for 2015 Ballon d’Or

After all the votes were counted, the final list was:-

1. Lionel Messi – Barcelona/Argentina
2. Cristiano Ronaldo – Real Madrid/Portugal
3. Neymar – Barcelona/Brazil
4. Robert Lewandowski – Bayern Munich/Poland
5. Luis Suarez – Barcelona/Uruguay
6. Thomas Muller – Bayern Munich/Germany
7. Manuel Neuer – Bayern Munich/Germany
8. Eden Hazard – Chelsea/Belgium
9. Andres Iniesta – Barcelona/Spain
10. Alexis Sanchez – Arsenal/Chile

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