Ballon d'Or 2016: 5 players who deserved to be in the top 17

The Ballon d’Or 2016 ceremony saw Cristiano Ronaldo being crowned the winner of the prestigious award for the 4^th time in his long and illustrious career. Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann came 2^nd and 3^rd respectively in the annual award ceremony.

However, France Football started the announcement with Toni Kroos at 17^th position. They later revealed that Luka Modric and Dimitri Payet had also finished at the same position as Kroos, thereby causing some confusion. The governing body of Ballon d’Or revealed that 11 footballers out of the 30-man shortlist failed to receive any votes from the panel of 173 journalists and thereby the award was to be decided between 19 players.

Here is how the 19 footballers finished in the race for the 61^st Ballon d’Or:

#17 – Toni Kroos, Luka Modric and Dimitri Payet.

#16 - Robert Lewandowski

#14 - Paul Pogba and Arturo Vidal

#13 - Zlatan Ibrahimovic

#12 - Rui Patricio

#11 - Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

#9 - Gianluigi Buffon and Pepe

#8 - Jamie Vardy

#7 - Riyad Mahrez

#6 - Gareth Bale

#5 - Neymar

#4 - Luis Suarez

#3 - Antoine Griezmann

#2 - Lionel Messi

#1 And then the winner of Ballon d'Or 2016 - Cristiano Ronaldo

Also Read: Ballon d'Or 2016: 11 players who received 0 votes

While the list generally received a positive response, some inclusions and some absentees were the major points of discussion (and not Ronaldo winning the award ahead of Messi). The inclusion of Portuguese goalkeeper Rui Patricio at 12^th position especially angered as well as baffled many.

Here are 5 players who deserved to be in the top 17:

#5 Andres Iniesta – FC Barcelona and Spain

While Iniesta is no longer the creative fulcrum that he once was for FC Barcelona it is hard to argue against his importance to Barcelona’s style of play. With the arrival of Neymar and Luis Suarez the Spaniard has moved to a more central role and orchestrates play instead of actually getting into goalscoring positions – he leaves that to the trio in front of him, arguably the best three that the world has ever seen, terrorizing defences at will and scoring goals almost like clockwork.

While this has resulted in a steady decline in his goalscoring and assisting stats, it has not reduced the insurmountable effect he has on Barcelona’s game. While Messi may run the show, it is Iniesta who fuels Messi and company. Not only is Iniesta essential to the Catalan outfit’s brand of football but he has also captained them to a quartet of titles over the course of the last season – two of which came this year – the Copa del Rey and the league title win.

He was also one of Spain’s better players in what turned out to be a dismal Euro 2016 campaign. However, according to the 173 journalists that voted for the Ballon d’Or – one of the best footballers of not only recent years but all time didn’t warrant a place in the top 17. Interesting!