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Barcelona‘s Lionel Messi won the Player of the year award at World Soccer’s award ceremony. The magazine also announced the Soccer team of the year, that surprisingly consisted of only one Premier League player in Manchester City‘s Vincent Kompany.
Kompany captained Manchester City to their first League title in 44 years, and he was voted into the line up alongside Philipp Lahm, Sergio Ramos and Jordi Alba in defence, with Ramos getting the most number of votes among the quartet.
The panel, consisting of journalists, coaches, officials and former players from around the world selected a team, which is led by Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Radamel Falcao.
Messi accumulated 47% votes compared to his Ballon d’Or rival Ronaldo’s 19%, although the latter gathered the most number of votes in the World Team of the year.
The team that contained more than 100 panelists also selected Spain Manager Vicente del Bosque as the manager of the year, as he had a successful year leading his team to the Euro 2012 title, and La Roja were also named as the team of the year, by the magazine.
Messi has claimed this prize for the third time, while this was the first time the award was given based on a 50/50 basis by experts/readers.
Iker Casillas (Real Madrid & Spain, 57 votes)
Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid & Spain, 63)
Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich & Germany, 48)
Vincent Kompany (Manchester City & Belgium, 42)
Jordi Alba (Valencia/Barcelona & Spain, 42)
Andres Iniesta (Barcelona & Spain, 94)
Andrea Pirlo (Juventus & Italy, 72)
Xavi (Barcelona & Spain, 59)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid & Portugal, 107)
Lionel Messi (Barcelona & Argentina, 106)
Radamel Falcao (Atletico Madrid & Colombia, 57)
