Claudio Ranieri rightfully won the Coach of the Year award at FIFA’s glitzy ceremony in Zurich on Monday night.
And naturally, Cristiano Ronaldo picked up the Player of the Year gong.
All fairly straightforward so far. But after the glitter has been hoovered up, the bunting taken down and the caretaker has locked up for the night, FIFA release the full voting information. It contains details of exactly who voted for whom in each award.
As England captain, Wayne Rooney gets a vote for each section, and his top three picks for Coach of the Year make interesting reading.
He went for Ranieri as number one, followed by Chris Coleman and… Jurgen Klopp.
Fifa coach award – @WayneRooney voted for Klopp in his top three pic.twitter.com/jhWEcOauQS
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) January 9, 2017
Now, Rooney is of course a double rival of Liverpool (if you can have such a thing), having grown up as an Evertonian and then played for them as a youngster, before joining the Reds’ other hated rivals, Manchester United.
Something of a surprise then to see him voting their manager as among the top three in the world in 2016. Especially since Klopp didn’t win anything with them – and in fact lost two finals in the calendar year.
Elsewhere, three cheers for the Chilean national coach Juan Antonio Pizzi who, in his voting for the Player of the Year, voted for Alexis Sanchez, then left the other two spots blank.
The best ballot in the whole FIFA awards is Chile coach Juan Antonio Pizzi's. He gave Alexis Sanchez first place and didn't fill in the rest pic.twitter.com/oHLoJUHEGg
— Joshua Robinson (@JoshRobinson23) January 9, 2017
Superb work, sir.
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