Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, And Neymar Make It To Ballon d’Or Shortlist

The duo felt that team-mate Luis Suarez should have survived the cull, when 23 players nominated by world football governing body Fifa and France Football magazine were whittled down to three on Monday.

Golden Eaglets coach Emmanuel Amuneke is confident Barcelona star Lionel Messi will win his fifth Ballon d’Or after he was named in the final three alongside Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo for the award.

Here is a look at the trio in numbers.

“Messi is a team player and the splendour of his play makes sense within the collective football of the team”, Cruyff said.

274,000 – Suggested weekly earning of Ronaldo at Real Madrid.

Having led Barcelona to a famous treble last season, Messi is the favourite to win the award while Ronaldo is looking to defend his crown and draw level with the Argentine for overall wins. This will be the seventh occasion in eight years for Ronaldo and Messi to be contesting for the world’s best player.

So far this season, he has scored 14 goals in his 12 La Liga appearances.

After winning his third Ballon d’Or, Ronaldo continued his incredible form to end the La Liga season with 48 goals. “If he doesn’t want a limit then he won’t have one because his characteristics and his qualities are favorable for this”.

3 – Number of goals Messi has netted since his return from a knee injury on November 21.

He went on to write his name into Real Madrid history as he overtook Raul and Alfredo Di Stefano to become the club’s all-time leading goalscorer. Messi was one of four players from that team to finish in the voters’ top five-the others were Xavi (3rd), Andrés Iniesta (4th), and Samuel Eto’o (5th), who had since moved to Inter in the summer of 2009.

Neymar was also delighted at being named on the Ballon d’Or three-man shortlist for the first time, but told beIN Sports (in an interview picked up by Mundo Deportivo) that it was a pity Suarez had not also made it.