Botswana snubs Messi

Zebras’ captain Joel Mogorosi is among the 30 national team captains who did not think highly of Monday night’s Ballon D’Or winner Lionel Messi. Instead, the Township Rollers’ winger voted for Christiano Ronaldo as the best and did not even include Messi in the list of his top three best footballers of 2015.

In voting for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award, each FIFA member country is accorded three votes from the national team’s coach and captain, with the third vote coming from the media. All the three voters from Botswana – coach Peter Butler, Mogorosi and journalist Oaitse Mathala – picked Ronaldo as the world’s best footballer with Messi coming in second place for Butler and Mathala.

Curiously, Messi did not feature in Mogorosi’s top three, with Barcelona’s Luis Suarez coming second in his assessment, and Manchester City’s Yaya Toure coming third. Toure, who lost out on the African Footballer of Year award last week was also voted third by Butler while Brazilian and Barcelona star Neymar completed Mathala’s top three.

Once the votes were leaked onto Twitter within minutes of Messi being crowned the winner, curious votes from other football stars and coaches emerged, with some voting for Bayern Munich’s Arjen Robben despite spending much of the season sidelined through injury. Chief to note was the fact that Messi, voting as captain of Argentina, did not include Ronaldo in his top three of teammates Luis Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta.

The favour was duly returned by Portugal’s captain who instead voted for his teammates Karim Benzema, James Rodriguez and Gareth Bale. Ronaldo neither featured in Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s top three.  

England's captain Wayne Rooney went for Messi and Thomas Muller ahead of Ronaldo, and neither did he vote his coach Louis Van Gaal for the coach's top prize. Instead Rooney picked Jose Mourinho as the best along with Pep Guardiola and Chile manager Jose Sampaoli.

In not including Messi in his top three, Mogorosi was part of the 30 captains that included Robert Lewandoski (Poland), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), James Rodriguez (Colombia), Chris Wood (New Zealand), Ronaldo (Portugal), Scott Brown (Scotland) and Diego Godín of Uruguay