Ballon D'Or Unusual Voting XI: Alternative Team Without Ronaldo, Ribery, Messi
Cristiano Ronaldo, Franck Ribery and Lionel Messi were the only serious contenders for the Ballon d'Or, right?
And if you're talking to football experts: captains, coaches, media representatives, they should know that too, right?
Wrong.
While there were plenty of standout performances in 2013 to take note of, there were some bizarre votes cast in the Ballon d'Or voting this year.
It's not that, say, Radamel Falcao didn't excel last year—but can a case seriously be made for him to win the award over the trio in the top three?
Falcao doesn't make our XI of obscure votes, and nor does Zlatan Ibrahimovic, pictured above. He would have been set for a fourth-place finish based on the number of votes he received from his peers, and few could have argued with that.
This team line-up in a 3-4-3 formation, thanks mainly to how top-heavy the voting is in favour of attacking players. Just two out-and-out defenders appear to have been deemed worthy of a vote, so we've improvised...
Note: Each FIFA country had their national captain, coach and media representative vote for a top three and points were tallied up accordingly. The full list of votes can be found here on FIFA's website.
GK: Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich and Germany)
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OK, nobody went too far off the radar with the selection of a goalkeeper on the Ballon d'Or shortlist.
Goalkeepers are supposed to be at their best if they're not being noticed, and accordingly Neuer is the only goalkeeper who collected a top three vote on this list.
Was Neuer a serious candidate for the year's best player in a list which included Ribery, Messi and Ronaldo?
The FIFPro XI keeper of choice, Neuer also keeps goal in our line-up.
As voted for by 2 people
France captain Hugo Lloris marked him 2nd only to Ribery.
And Antigua and Barbuda coach Williams Rolston placed him behind only Ribery and Robin Van Persie.
RB: Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich and Germany)
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Lahm couldn't have done much more in 2013—he was captain of a treble-winning Bayern side that swept all before them at domestic and European level.
He has performed on both flanks selflessly for many years, and at the age of 30 still has quite a bit of football left in him.
But despite being arguably not the most skilled player in his own team he turned up on the list numerous times.
As voted for by 18 people
Mozambique captain Dario Ivan Khan reckoned him the best player in the world last year.
So did the coach of Israel, Eli Gutman, who had three Bayern players in his top three.
CB: Thiago Silva (PSG and Brazil)
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Heralded as one of the standout defenders in world football in 2013, Thiago Silva showed why Paris Saint-Germain splashed out more than £30m to acquire him from AC Milan.
But was he a more obvious candidate for the Ballon d'Or than his club teammate Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose goals fired PSG to the Ligue 1 title?
Well, your view probably depends on whether you are the captain of Madagascar or not.
As voted for by 5 people
Tahina Randrianarisoa picked him as the player of the year, the Madagascar coach relegating Gareth Bale and Lionel Messi to second and third.
LB: Gareth Bale (Tottenham, Real Madrid and Wales)
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Well, he may not have played as a left-back since his early days at Tottenham Hotspur, but for the purposes of our team that's where he slots in.
Having the world's most expensive player in the line-up and dropping him into defence is something of a luxury, but it's also a necessity given that Silva and Lahm were the only recognised defenders to make anybody's top threes.
In the unlikely event that the dynamic forward line ever gave the ball away and created a situation where the defenders had to do some defending, expect Bale to break swiftly from deep.
As voted for by 25 people
Winston Reid of West Ham and New Zealand marked him down as the game's best player in 2013, while Cristiano Ronaldo had him down as second only to Radamel Falcao (although it should be stressed that he couldn't vote for himself).
LM: Eden Hazard (Chelsea and Belgium)
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Nobody doubts the 23-year-old's prodigious talent, but Eden Hazard is not the finished article at Chelsea and his suggestion as one of the world's top three players was a little bit strange.
The Belgian has developed into a key player under Jose Mourinho but the first half of 2013 saw him go off the boil. The likes of Juan Mata at that point were more integral to the Blues line-up—how times change.
Still, thanks to a handful of votes he can take a place on the left in this line-up.
As voted for by 6 people
Nobody thought Hazard was the world's best player last year, but his national coach Marc Wilmots had him third to only Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Which, by extension, means he was better than Ronaldo, Messi and Ribery...
CM: Xavi (Barcelona and Spain)
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2011 called—they want their Ballon d'Or candidates back.
Xavi is still a fine, fine player, but at the moment, with his 34th birthday just a couple of weeks away, his very best days are behind him.
Voting for the midfielder as the best player in the world is like acknowledging you haven't watched any football for a couple of years.
As voted for by 20 people
Still Spain coach Vicente del Bosque's top pick (he found no room for Messi or Ronaldo in his top three).
Also top dog for Ethiopia captain Degu Debebe Gebreyes, who picked a midfield-heavy top three including Andrea Pirlo and Thomas Muller.
CM: Yaya Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast)
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Yes, Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or despite not picking up any silverware in 2013.
But Ronaldo scored 69 goals and dominated a team.
Yaya Toure is an excellent player and has been rejuvenated under Manuel Pellegrini, but the year saw his much-fancied Ivory Coast side bow out in the quarter-finals of the African Cup of Nations, while his Manchester City team surrendered their Premier League title to Manchester United, and lose the FA Cup final to relegated Wigan.
But strong support from Africa, where he was recently voted the continent's player of the year, sees him make our XI.
As voted for by 22 people
His Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba had him at No. 1. Stephen Keshi, the Nigeria coach who masterminded the win over Ivory Coast at the Cup of Nations, also had him as the best.
There were also votes from the likes of Mali, Mauritania and Cambodia.
RM: Iniesta (Barcelona and Spain)
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A similar story to Xavi, where past glories are probably overvalued in his 2013 nominations.
The flip side of that argument, however, is that he's still seen as the top man by none other than Lionel Messi. Messi voted him No. 1 of an all-Barcelona top three.
Who else has worked more closely with Iniesta in 2013 to make that judgement?
Then again, maybe he's not been paying enough attention to Ronaldo's 2013 if the Portuguese doesn't even make the top three...
As voted for by 37 people
In addition to Messi, Guatemala coach Juan Manuel Funes voted Iniesta the best player of the year.
CF: Edinson Cavani (Napoli, PSG and Uruguay)
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Scoring goals for fun at Napoli and Paris Saint-Germain, either side of a £50m plus summer transfer move was not enough to get Cavani anything but the minimum of recognition.
Perhaps it's a reflection of how elite strikers are so much more complete these days that Cavani was never a serious candidate for the award.
As voted for by 10 people
Uruguay captain Diego Lugano had Cavani second on his list (a fellow Uruguayan beating him), with Messi trailing in third place.
Giuseppe Giannini, the head coach of the Lebanon, was the only man to put Cavani top.
CF: Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund and Poland)
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Lewandowski's 2013 will be best remembered for his four-goal demolition of Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final.
Before that and after that the Pole banged in the goals for his club, but his 2014 looks set to be remembered for the contentious if inevitable switch to Bayern Munich.
Like Cavani, is he discovering that just scoring lots and lots of goals is not enough?
As voted for by 23 people
Hong Kong captain Wai Ho Chan voted him the best player in the world in 2013. Less surprisingly, so did the Poland coach, even if the national captain (and Dortmund teammate) Jakub Blaszczykowski had to concede he was only third to Ronaldo and Messi...
CF: Luis Suarez (Liverpool and Uruguay)
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There are plenty of people who would argue Luis Suarez deserves to be recognised on a level with the likes of Messi and Ronaldo. And in recent times those plaudits have come from more than just Liverpool supporters.
His goals this season speak for themselves, and while it's hard to argue with the choice of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Messi and Ronaldo in the FIFPro World XI, there's little doubt he's closing on their level.
That said, a year in which he served a 10-match suspension for biting Branislav Ivanovic of Chelsea could have counted against him when it comes to getting votes from his contemporaries.
As voted for by 10 people
Slovakia captain (oh, and Liverpool colleague) Martin Skrtel had Luis Suarez down as his top man.
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