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Messi is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Bar-celona and the Argenti-na national team. Often considered the best player in the world and rated by many in the sport as the greatest of all time, Messi is the only football player in history to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or five times, four of which he won consecutively, and the first player to win three European Golden Shoes.

Top 15 most wanted football players in the world

After a couple of years of looking just a little short of his previous brilliance, there were fears that the best of Messi may already have been behind him. In-stead, the Argentinean has bounced back spectacularly in 2015, producing some magical performances while adapting to a new role and finishing the season with 58 goals and 31 assists as Barcelona lift-ed a treble.

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One of the world’s best players, CR7 won everything with Manches-ter United be-fore completing a world record £80m transfer to Real Madrid in 2009. A three-time Ballon d’Or win-ner he dated Rus-sian supermodel Irina Shayk for five years - before splitting in 2015

It was still another phenomenal sea-son for the Ballon d’Or winner of the past two years, plundering 48 goals in La Liga to claim the European Golden Show and a further 10 to finish joint top scorer in the Champions League. The goals came as the Portuguese star in-creasingly moved from the wing to a clinical one-touch finishing striker.

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the Uruguay national team as a striker. In July 2014, he moved from Liverpool to Bar-celona for a fee report-ed by the English press in the region of £75 million (€94 million), while Barcelona claim a fee of £65 million (€81 million), mak-ing him the third-most expensive player in football history.[2][3] The transfer took place after he had won the European Golden Shoe in the previous season with Liverpool.

The Uruguayan faced plenty of chal-lenges at the start of the season, moving to a huge club, attempting to fit into a team featuring the world’s brightest star in Messi, and all while having to miss the first two months due to a suspen-sion. But after an initial adaption period, Suarez has been brilliant, his movement and unselfishness helping both himself and Messi

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is a Dutch profes-sional footballer who plays for German club Bayern Munich and is the captain of the Neth-erlands national team. Robben has appeared at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 UEFA European Championships, and the 2006, 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups. He is a forward who usually plays as a left or right sided winger. Robben is known for his dribbling skills, speed, crossing ability and his accurate left foot long-range shots from the right wing.

Robben’s antics on the pitch mean he isn’t exactly everyone’s favorite, but his abil-ity is undeniable and continues to improve even at the age of 31. The Dutch winger scored 17 goals in just 21 Bundesliga ap-pearances, while adding seven assists last season. And his more direct complement to Bayern’s possession game was sorely missed by the German champions as he sat out the climax of the season through injury.

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commonly known as Neymar or Neymar Jr., is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays for Spanish club FC Barcelona and the Brazil national team as a forward or winger, and is also the captain of the national team

The third member of Barcelona’s incred-ible forward trio that fired 122 goals in all competitions. Neymar’s achievements were often overlooked alongside those of Messi and Suarez, but his individual tally of 39 goals was deserving of plenty of ac-claim and his more individualist style pro-vided a fine balance to Barcelona’s attack.

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The World Cup winner continues to stands apart as the standard-bearer for modern-day goalkeepers. Not only phenomenal with his hands, the 29-year-old’s ability with his feet and anticipation coming from his goal almost gives Bayern Munich and Germany an extra outfield player.

Manuel Neuer is a German professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Bayern Munich and the Germany na-tional team. He has been described as a “sweeper-keeper” because of his unique playing style and speed when rushing off his line; he is also known for his quick reflexes, excellent shot-stopping abilities, command of his area and accurate control and distribu-tion of the ball.

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The undoubted top player of the season in the Pre-mier League, Hazard was the only attacker who consistently delivered for Chelsea throughout the campaign. The Belgian continues to become a more efficient player, delivering 14 goals and nine assists in the Premier League this season.

Eden Hazard is a Belgian professional footballer who plays for Chelsea and the Belgium national team. He primarily plays as an attack-ing midfielder and a winger. Hazard’s creativity, speed, and technical ability are widely acknowl-edged

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Given how good he is already, it’s a scary thought for midfield-ers around the world that the 22-year-old still has so much scope for improvement. Pogba has everything the modern midfielder, and indeed the modern player, could want -- technique, power and speed -- in abundance. Manchester United must curse every day the fact that they allowed him to leave.

Paul Pogba is a French professional footballer who plays for Italian club Juventus and the France national team. He operates primarily as a central midfielder and is comfortable at playing both in attack and defence.Pogba was described by his former club Manchester United as a “powerful, skilful, and creative” player who has “an eye for goal and a penchant for the spectacular.

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After becoming a breakout star at last year’s World Cup, the Colombian faced a big challenge going into Real Madrid with a massive price tag over his head and having to adapt to a position with much more defensive responsibility. But the 23-year-old thrived, firing 17 goals and 18 assists.

James Rodriguez is a Colombian profes-sional footballer who plays for Spanish club Real Madrid and the Colombia national team as an attacking midfielder or winger. James is commonly ranked as one of the best young players in the world.[1][2][3] He is praised for his technique, vision and playmaking skills, and often referred as the successor to his com-patriot Carlos Valder-rama.

#9

Niggling injuries continue to prevent Aguero from fully realizing his full abilities, but he showed how good he can be with a run of games toward the end of the cam-paign to finish as the Premier League’s top scorer on 26 goals. His fitness is likely to be crucial to City’s hopes of regaining the Premier League title.

Sergio Aguero is an Argentine profes-sional footballer who plays as a striker for English club Man-chester City and the Argentina national team. On 5 July 2003, he became the youngest player to debut in the Argen-tine Primera División at 15 years and 35 days, breaking the record previously established by Diego Maradona in 1976.

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The Chilean struggled to impose himself at Barcelona, but has shown just how good a player he is since making the move to Arse-nal. It is not just his ability on the ball that stood out as he carried Arsenal through the early months of last season, but his tireless work without the ball. And Sanchez capped a fine year by helping Chile to their first inter-national title at the Copa America this sum-mer.

In comparison to his first season at Real Madrid, which ended with vital goals in the finals of the Champions League and Copa del Rey, it was a far less satisfying campaign for the world’s most expensive player last time out. There is no doubt that his effectiveness is diminished play-ing on the same team as Ronaldo, but his game-changing ability could be given more license to shine under Rafa Benitez

He rarely gets the headlines, but Busquets’ contribution to Barcelona’s success contin-ues to be sizable. It is perhaps when he is absent that it becomes most apparent just how vital his presence in front of the de-fense, swiftly moving the ball around and constantly alert to danger, truly is.

One of the most hard-to-define star players in recent memory continues to be unerringly effective for both club and country. The un-gainly forward with a brilliant understanding of the game and his own limitations scored 21 goals in all competitions for Bayern Mu-nich while adding 18 assists.

He may have amazingly failed to get a single goal in either La Liga or the Champions League last season, but the 31-year-old showed how influential he still is by providing the assist for the opening goal in the Champions League final, and putting in a man-of-the-match performance. Heading into the season as Barcelona’s new captain, he will still have a major part to play in Barcelona’s attempt to become the first club to retain the Champions League.

Andrés Iniesta is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a central mid-fielder for FC Bar-celona and the Spain national team. He serves as the captain for Barcelona. Ini-esta came through La Masia, the Barcelona youth academy, after an early emigration from his birthplace, and impressed from an early age.

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Campaign “Ballon d’or”

The Barcelona pair Lionel Messi and Neymar will be up against Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo in the vote to be named the Bal-lon d’Or 2015 winner.

Ronaldo has won the world’s top player award for the last two years after ending Messi’s four-year winning streak, while Neymar makes the shortlist for the first time. The winner will be announced at a gala in Zurich on 11 January when a series of other awards are handed out.

Messi is the odds-on favourite to win his fifth Ballon d’Or and Ronaldo feels there is no reason to expect an upset. “To be honest I think Messi is going to win this year because this kind of trophy, it depends on votes,” the Portugal international said earlier this month. “You win competitions, you win the Champions League you win the league in terms of individual. I did probably the best season of my career which is good and I was the highest scorer in Europe [but] it’s all about votes. It is difficult and to be honest I am not very worried about that because as I said many times, I never thought I would win three times to be honest.”

Neymar scored twice as Barcelona beat Real Sociedad on Saturday, and afterwards spoke of his pride at being included among the contenders. “I have never played football to be the best player in the world, or to win the Ballon d’Or,” said the Brazil forward. “I’ve always just played with the idea of continually getting better, to always surpass my goals, to always be better, play better, train better. To be the best in the world is the direct result of all of this work. If today I am being spoken of in such terms, it is a clear sign that what I am doing is working.”

The men’s world coach of the year shortlist features Chile’s Copa América winner Jorge Sampaoli, alongside Bayern Munich’s Pep Guardiola and Barcelona’s Luis Enrique.

The women’s world player of the year shortlist is headed by the American World Cup winner Carli Lloyd, Aya Miyama (Japan) and Celia Sasic (Germany). England’s Mark Sampson makes the women’s football coach of the year shortlist, alongside Jill Ellis (US) and Norio Sasak (Japan).

Three finalists for the Puskás Award have also been announced, with Fleetwood Town’s David Ball missing out. The shortlist is: Alessandro Florenzi for Roma against Barcelona in September, Wendell Lira for Atlético GO v Goianesia in March, and Messi for Barça v Athletic Bilbao in May’s Copa del Rey final

Messi winner ballon d’or 2015It was Messi’s fifth award having earlier won four back to back Ballon d’Or titles in 2009,2010,2011 and 2012 and 2015 triumph make him the only player in the history to have won the award 5 times. Ronaldo missed out on equaling messi haul as he finished second behind Messi in the voting.

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