As if Lionel Messi not making the three-man UEFA Player of the Year shortlist wasn't surprising enough, UEFA have revealed that the Argentine ace finished fifth in the rankings.
Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool's Mo Salah all made the cut for the award, which will be handed to the winner on August 30.
Modric was again instrumental in another Real Madrid Champions League triumph and then picked up the World Cup Golden Ball after captaining Croatia to the final.
Ronaldo scored a ridiculous 15 goals in Europe's premier club competition last term, while Salah's immense 44-goal haul across all competitions in his debut season at Liverpool saw him make the final three.
Messi's sensational tally of 45 brought him the European Golden shoe to go with the two trophies he lifted with the Blaugrana, but World Cup winner Antoine Griezmann pipped him to fourth in the voting by 17 points.
The rankings came about after 80 coaches from clubs that participated in last season's Champions League and Europa League and 55 journalists picked their top three players - deploying a scoring system of five points for No.1 pick, three points for second and one for third.
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PSG hot-shot and World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe finished sixth, Belgium's Premier League duo of Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard were also in - and Real Madrid's centre-back pairing of Raphael Varane and Sergio Ramos also made the top 10.
Rest of the top 10:
4. Antoine Griezmann - 72 points
5. Lionel Messi - 55 points
6. Kylian Mbappe - 43 points
7. Kevin De Bruyne - 28 points
8. Raphaël Varane - 23 points
9. Eden Hazard - 15 points
10. Sergio Ramos - 12 points
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Who will take the prize?
Sound off in the comments.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Football News, FC Barcelona, Football, Lionel Messi, UEFA
