Sportskeeda Football Awards 2015: And the winners are...

As another year came to a close, we asked the readers of Sportskeeda to vote for the standout performers in the calendar year 2015. It was an eventful year as we witnessed Barcelona stamp their dominance by winning five trophies, Chile winning the Copa America, PSG completing a domestic quadruple, Juventus winning a double and Bayern Munich winning a third consecutive Bundesliga title, on their way to a fourth. The readers were asked to vote for their choices in five different categories. Here are the winners!

#1 Best Manager: Luis Enrique Barcelona

Barcelona won five trophies in 2015 under Luis Enrique

There was almost no competition for the Best Manager of 2015 as Luis Enrique won the award with 62% of the votes. As mentioned earlier, Barcelona won five trophies in 2015 – the UEFA Champions League, La Liga, Copa del Rey, the FIFA Club World Cup and the UEFA Super Cup! They had also played for the Supercopa de España but lost to Athletic Bilbao on aggregate.

They were almost undefeated in the Champions League in 2015, losing just once to Bayern Munich but eventually winning the tie on aggregate. To make the win more impressive, they had beaten the defending champions from the EPL (Manchester City), Ligue 1 (PSG), Bundesliga (Bayern Munich) and Serie A (Juventus) in the knockout stages to win the 2014/15 title.

Enrique will have the trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar to thank for the Catalan club’s success last year. The MSN trio smashed records and didn’t miss a step even when Messi was out injured for two months last year. The Spanish boss has overseen a very successful period despite a transfer ban rightly wins the award for 2015.

Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri came in second for turning around the Foxes’ fortunes in the second half of 2015 while Arsene Wenger came in third after being the best Premier League team for 2015.

#	MANAGER	CLUB	VOTES
1	Luis Enrique	Barcelona	62%
2	Claudio Ranieri	Leicester City	14%
3	Arsene Wenger	Arsenal	9%

#2 Best Goalkeeper: David De Gea - Manchester United

David De Gea was easily Manchester United’s best player in 2015

David De Gea had a topsy-turvy year in 2015 at Manchester United but wins the Best Goalkeeper of 2015 award with 27% of the votes. The Spanish goalkeeper ended the 2014/15 season well as the Red Devils returned to the Champions League with a top-four finish following a disastrous season under David Moyes.

The 25-year-old then won two awards at the end of season club awards. He took home the Players' Player of the Year and the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year (voted by the fans) and looked all set to make a move to Real Madrid in the summer transfer window.

But the Liga club left it too late and ultimately failed to complete the deal for De Gea on deadline day. On a personal note, the Spain international was crushed. But he quickly put his head down and started games for United again, taking over from Sergio Romero and put in performances that delighted the Old Trafford fans. He would also go on to sign a contract extension.

De Gea would finish the year with 11 clean sheets in the Premier League as he saved the Red Devils from losing points when the attack failed to turn up towards the end of the year.

Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer finished a close second while Claudio Bravo finished third in the poll.

#	GOALKEEPER	CLUB	VOTES
1	David De Gea	Manchester United	27%
2	Manuel Neuer	Bayern Munich	22%
3	Claudio Bravo	Barcelona	19%

#3 Best Defender: Gerard Pique - Barcelona

Gerard Pique was a crucial player who lifted a struggling Barcelona defence

The award for the Best Defender of 2015 was the most closely contested poll of the lot but it was Gerard Pique who eventually won the award with 19% of the votes. The 28-year-old centre-back has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in 2015, most notably for his tweets trolling Real Madrid.

But take nothing away from the defender who helped the Catalan club to a second treble last season despite being benched in late 2014 after a fallout with boss Luis Enrique. But the Spain international stepped up and made it count last year, feeding on the criticism to perform better, especially at the Bernabeu where he almost scored Barcelona’s fifth in the 4-0 Clasico thrashing.

Pique finished ahead of Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny and Manchester United’s Chris Smalling. Koscielny has been the Premier League’s best defender in 2015 while Smalling has seen massive improvement in 2015 after a red card in the Manchester derby seemed to spell doom for the Englishman.

#	DEFENDER	CLUB	VOTES
1	Gerard Pique	Barcelona	19%
2	Laurent Koscielny	Arsenal	16%
3	Chris Smalling	Manchester United	15%

#4 Best Midfielder: Mesut Ozil - Arsenal

Mesut Ozil had 21 Premier League assists in 2015

The award for the Best Midfielder of 2015 goes to Arsenal playmaker Mesut Ozil. The German midfielder has been on fire this season with 16 assists in the league alone. That took his tally for the calendar year 2015 to 21 league assists (the record for most assist in an EPL season is 20 by Thierry Henry).

Ozil has now stepped up this season to lead the team after having adapted to the physicality and punishing schedule of the Premier League. He has also looked to add goalscoring instincts to his repertoire but is more at ease finding his teammates than the back of the net. He was instrumental in Arsenal retaining the FA Cup and topping the table at the halfway stage of the 2015/16 season.

In second place is Barcelona’s Ivan Rakitic who replaced Cesc Fabregas and seamlessly fit into Luis Enrique’s setup alongside Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets, who finished third.

#	MIDFIELDER	CLUB	VOTES
1	Mesut Ozil	Arsenal	35%
2	Ivan Rakitic	Barcelona	25%
3	Sergio Busquets	Barcelona	14%

#5 Best Forward: Lionel Messi - Barcelona

Lionel Messi was the key to the ‘MSN’ trio functioning as a unit

To be frank, we expected the battle for the Best Forward of 2015 to be much closer than this. But Barcelona’s Lionel Messi takes home the award with a landslide win – a whopping 56% of the votes going in his favour.

The Argentine captain led the trio of MSN on a deadly rampage across Europe as they plundered 137 goals in all competitions. Messi’s contribution itself was 48 goals and 23 assists in 53 games across all competitions. Apart from shattering some records along the way, he also reached a personal landmark of 500 games for Barcelona, celebrating the achievement by scoring against Real Betis.

His arch Ballon d’Or rival Cristiano Ronaldo also had another year with more than 50 goals to his name as he won the European Golden Shoe at the end of the 2014/15 season – a record fourth time in his career. But on the team front, Real Madrid went trophyless after winning La Decima the previous season – probably a factor in the lesser number of votes. Luis Suarez came third in the poll while Neymar finished fourth – both way behind the top two.

#	FORWARD	CLUB	VOTES
1	Lionel Messi	Barcelona	56%
2	Cristiano Ronaldo	Real Madrid	29%
3	Luis Suarez	Barcelona	8%