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Ten years, ago, FIFA began revealing the votes behind its Ballon D'or / Best awards. In that time, Messi and Ronaldo have dominated; I've taken a look at their rivalry through the prism of voting patterns. Thread!
Firstly, a quick one on how the voting works. Each country has three voters - the national coach, captain, and a media representative. They each submit their top three players for that year. (As we've seen with Egypt this year - not everyone remembers to do this or does it right)
For the purposes of this analysis, I've looked at whether the voter ranked Messi above Ronaldo, Ronaldo above Messi, or whether neither was in the voter's top 3 players. Basically, I want to know: did the voter prefer Ronaldo or Messi? (There's other ways you could do it, too)
Over ten years, Messi just edges the overall vote - voters have placed him above Ronaldo in their submission 45% of the time, whereas Ronaldo has beaten Messi 42% of the time. The peak of their rivalry was probably 2013, with an almost-even split of 'wins' for either player. 
Messi's edge can in large part be attributed to votes from South America, where he is consistently ranked above Ronaldo in the votes. The Oceanian countries were most likely to vote for neither, while Africa and Asia have been marginally pro-Ronaldo.
Unsurprisingly, Messi has swept up almost all Argentinean votes (excluding his own), with only the media representative in 2018 placing Ronaldo above him. He's also got a decent (surprising?) following in the central Asian states of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Ronaldo's had strong backing from his home country and some of its former colonies. Am also intrigued what Kyrgyzstan has against Messi (especially given the Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan love-in).
Looking at some selected countries: the Germans have excluded both players from their top three nearly 60% of the time, which seems a bit harsh (more later). English, French and Italian voters have historically leaned Ronaldo, while Dutch and Belgians have leaned Messi.
Some of the most interesting patterns are in the profile of voters. National team coaches have generally preferred Messi, while captains and media representatives have been much more evenly split. This is pretty consistent across continent (next tweet) - theories welcome.
In almost every continent, coaches are most pro-Messi, the media most pro-Ronaldo, and captains somewhere between the two. Not sure what's going on in the Oceanian media, who are totally at odds with their coaches and captains.
Narrowing in on 'individual' voters, below are the most pro-Messi. Turkmenistan's Alexander Vershinin and Uzbekistan's two captains in this period have placed Messi above Ronaldo in their voting submission in each of the ten years.
Ronaldo has club loyalty to thank for Spanish captains' votes (though curiously Casillas didn't vote in 2015). Singapore's captains Shahril Ishak and Hariss Harun meanwhile have unerringly ranked Ronaldo above Messi since 2012.
Finally, a little more on the Germans' tendency to vote for neither; Joachim Löw has *never* had Ronaldo even in his top three, and only twice given Messi a vote (in 2010 and 2011). Their captains have been slightly pro-Messi, though only gave him their top vote in 2011.
So there you have it. Of course politics and loyalties come into the voting, but there's plenty of curiosities in there too. It's been a wonderful rivalry over 10+ years, and I think the voting patterns truly reflect that.
