Ronaldo and Barça's three frontmen.

Messi, Neymar, Suárez and Cristiano Ronaldo are four of the ten players shortlisted for UEFA's 2014/15 Best Player in Europe award.Strangely though, there are no Spaniards in the final ten-man shortlist. The initial 35-man list of candidates had included Barça's Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández (now playing in Qatar), Real Madrid's Sergio Ramos and Juventus's Álvaro Morata.

The shortlist for the Best Player in Europe was compiled from the votes of journalists from all 54 of UEFA's national federations, who each sent in a list of five players.

UEFA has announced that the jury will vote for the winner during the draw for the group stages of the European Champions League, scheduled to take place in Monaco on 28th August.The most recent winners of the award are: Lionel Messi (2011), Andrés Iniesta (2012), Franck Ribéry (2013) and Cristiano Ronaldo (2014).

The candidates for the 2014/15 season are: Gianluigi Buffon (ITA/Juventus), Eden Hazard (BEL/Chelsea FC), Lionel Messi (ARG/FC Barcelona), Neymar (BRA/FC Barcelona), Paul Pogba (FRA/Juventus), Andrea Pirlo (ITA/Juventus), Cristiano Ronaldo (POR/Real Madrid CF), Luis Suárez (URU/FC Barcelona), Carlos Tévez (ARG/Juventus) and Arturo Vidal (CHI/Juventus).

From Marca.

I will rectify just one thing, '' strangely nno spaniard in the top ten '', its not really strange, Marca is a little biased here

Messi is definitely, and most well-deserved player to win this year. He has been the most beautiful thing to watch this season, he won titles and was a key player for Argentina to be in the final. This award take both club and country into consideration, no one deserves it more than Messi.

This is the kind of award that at least spark out credibility. Not like Ballon 'Or.

I found it weird that Alexis is not in the list.

As for Hazard, uhmn I dont think Cecs and Matic were more important than him. Cesc was crucial at the beginning, but not the end. Matic was awesome, but not that special.

@Dyn: I think you are too harsh on Pirlo. I think he did a tremedous job, Juve was in the CL final totally unexpected. (and Im not even talking about his age)

I agree with Dynastian about all of his comments. I didnt even need to explain my opinions.

@JuanMata10

No, I strictly believe that both Suarez and Rakitic are the reason Barca won the treble. You cannot underestimate the impact the two of them have on the pitch. Rakitic provided the capability of keeping possession and making intelligent plays - something Barca has lacked since Xavi started declining.

And as for Suarez... what can I say? He is the most unselfish striker in the world. He dribbles up to the top of the penalty area, goes past a few defenders, faces the goalkeeper.... and then proceeds to pass to Neymar who only has to do a tap in for a goal. That is why Suarez is the main reason as to why Barca won the treble. His sheer presence in the box enabled Messi to have more open space and get Neymar more involved into the play. His unselfishness helped both Leo and Neymar shine much more and score a ridiculous tally of goals, and his own goal-scoring abilities are well-known to be world-class. The addition of Suarez and Rakitic were why Barca won the league, Copa, and the UCL.

It's like looking at Madrid's 2014 season and pointing out Ronaldo as our best player... but was he the reason we won the CL? We'd had Ronaldo for 5 seasons then, but lost in the semis for 3 seasons in a row. Why did we win the CL then? Main reason - Luka Modric.

Modric's positioning, possession abilities, and wide range of vision enabled our forwards to get in much more open space and perform excellently. The same can be said of di Maria as well. Sure, Ronaldo is our best player. But they were the reason why we won the CL.

In Chelsea, it's a similar situation that I perceive except Hazard is not the best player. He is not head and shoulders above everyone like Ronaldo is at his club. Hazard is just a talented player amongst other talented players. He is near the top of the pack, definitely, but not by a mile. Cesc and Matic are also up there. Remove Cesc and look at how the whole Chelsea system crumbles. My point is that Hazard is not consistently performing or performing at such a high level that he deserves to be so hyped. Cesc and Matic are doing just as well as Hazard and are not getting the recognition for it.

Hazard is a nice dribbler but does not have the end-product required to be considered among the very best. Neither is he heavily involved in Chelsea's plays (I'm talking about the Ribery in 2012-13 Bayern type of winger). Saying that Hazard is involved in every Chelsea goal is an exaggeration. If that's how you want to put it, then Ronaldo is also involved in every Madrid goal. He makes passes that eventually lead to goals all the time. But that's not how we define the "best" player.

Sad to read that...

What that special did Pogba or Pirlo to be there and Alexis didn't? :)

I think in this prize, Europeen competitions have a big importance, in 2011 Messi won CL, 2012 Iniesta was the best Euro 2012 player, 2013 Ribery won CL, 2014 Ronaldo won CL. I would also put Alexis or Piqué or Rakitic or James/Benz/Aguero... Well anyway it doesnt matter that much since the winner will probably be from the team who lifted the CL.

I'm betting all my cash on either Suarez or Messi. Even though Messi deserves it most, Suarez has next highest claim to it. Ronaldo would be 3rd for me.

Why don't they scrap the individual awards already.

I agree Modric is the key, the core engine of Real. but in Barca it's Messi, Suarez is undoubtedly the 2nd most influential player after him, and because of Suarez Neymar and Messi had more room to play. Having said that, Messi not only score, he dropped deep, dictate the play and decided games after games.

@D: Sorry mate, been away on holidays and just came back yesterday.

Anyways, in regards to the Barcelona topic, I second @tuan_jinn's opinion.

For Madrid, I don't think that all the praise should go to Modric only. One player that deserves as much recognition as him for that season is Di Maria, who was nearly equally as important as the Croatian. I know that Ronaldo isn't the most important player in Reals side, but you still haven't realized that Hazard and Ronaldo have completely different role in their respective sides. Ronaldo is a prolific goalmachine, while Hazard is a creator.

One quote of yours that astonished me was this one:
"In Chelsea, it's a similar situation that I perceive except Hazard is not the best player".

I thought our discussion was about who's the most important player in Chelsea, not the best one? I will happily argue with you about who's the most important player in Chelsea, because opinions of this topic may vary and I'm okay with that, but there's absolutely no point in arguing who's the best player of Chelsea with you if you fail to realize that Hazard is easily the best Chelsea player by a mile. Hazard is definitely not just a talented player amongst other talented players, like you put it. He is the stand-out performer amongst other world class players. I seriously doubt that you have watched more than 5 Chelsea games this season, because the statements you keep throwing at me are ridiculous.

Cesc and Matic are getting a lot of recognition amongst Chelsea fans, but also outside the Chelsea sphere - in contrast to Hazard. Eden gets a lot of credit from Chelsea fans, but apart from that, he is heavily underrated which you can see in every Hazard-related youtube video and also here on FR. Hazard was the most consistent player in our PL campaign and outperformed everyone at the club, including Matic and Cesc, who were exceptional in the first half of the season, but faded away in the second half of the season, especially the latter. It was at this time, that Hazard stepped up and got us results week in, week out.

@JM10

I've watched roughly 10 full Chelsea matches last season, notably the PSG ties, 5-3 loss to Spurs, and both league games against Arsenal and City. As you can see, I'm not an avid fan of the club. Matter of fact, I've watched more United and City games than Chelsea. Whatever conclusions I make on Hazard and co. are strictly from the matches in which I have observed them. Not to mention I had also watched Hazard play for Belgium in the WC.

If you really feel that way about Hazard, then perhaps it may be because he is so overrated among Chelsea supporters? You guys seem to hype up the man for doing some nice dribbles here and there and making some solid passes. In the games I have watched Hazard, he has not performed outstandingly. He was always good, but not exceptionally good. He made smart plays, had nice dribbles, held up the ball well for his team (impressive for his diminutive stature), and scored some important goals here and there (the curler against Man United a couple years ago is the one that sticks out in my head the most). Definitely one of the best players in the league. But, once again, I have yet to see the Hazard you speak of.

@Dynastian "In the games I have watched Hazard, he has not performed outstandingly. He was always good, but not exceptionally good."
I agree, but than tell me how regarding to the last season Matic or Fabregas were more consistent and deserve to be in this list ? Does Fabregas and Matic were exceptionally good all the season ? Definitely not.

@Dyn: I agree that these matches are not really the ideal ones to make a judgement on Hazard. Mostly, because we've adapted a defensive approach in nearly all of these fixtures (except for the Spurs tie) and Hazards attacking performance obviously suffered from that. However, it's odd that you mentioned Cesc and Matic as the best players, because neither of them were particularly impressive or at least not better than Hazard in the games that you've listed

And the 3 finalists for the award are : Messi, Ronaldo, and Suarez.

Really happy for Suarez that his role on the shadow was considered, while Neymar was exposed more and on the spotlight ( assisted by Suarez ). For a player comming from another team and league, having 4 month ban, what he did in CL was incredible.

Ronaldo, well no need to talk much, his individual stats talk for himself, and Messi,oh well we should ask Milner, Fernandinho, Boateng and co :)

1. Messi 2. Suarez 3. Ronaldo..

Messi will take it.

Does anyone honestly think Suarez was better than Ronaldo last calender year?

It'd have to be a pretty good argument...

Thats not Ballon d' Or, this trophy is only based on CL performence... And if Suarez wins it, i wont be surprised, Against City away, PSG away, Munich away and scoring the winner in the final. he has been key for Barça success, Messi was incredible in many games too, with the same consistence of Pistolero, Same for Ronaldo...
I was happy to see him instead of Neymar, because when Neymar scored, he was always assisted by Messi/Suarez.

Messi there is no even discussion about it, but Suarez and Cristiano had fantastic season too.