FIFA vs. The People: Who the fans believe are truly the best players

• Despite Ronaldo crowned FIFA’s champion player, the people only ranked him second. As a result, Messi climbed to the top spot from 2^nd to 1^st according to fans.
• Neymar was a found to be a non-mover holding onto 3^rd place according to FIFA’s rankings and the people’s choice.
• ‘The Best FIFA Men’s Player’ holder Modric, was surprisingly only ranked 12^th by FIFA and dropped down 4 places to 16^th according to the fans.
• Gareth Bale, however, moved up 10 from FIFA’s 17^th position to become the publics 7^th best current player in 2018.

It’s been a big year for footballing legends. Ronaldo overtook pop princess Selena Gomez as the most followed person on Instagram with a staggering 145M followers. And for the first time since 2007, neither Ronaldo or Lionel Messi won the award for ‘best male’ at the FIFA awards. Rather, it was Real Madrid’s Luka Modric that collected the accolade. Not to mention, Neymar still retains his position among the top ten most-followed people in the world.

It’s safe to say the love fans declare for their football heroes remains crystal clear.

As a result, football specialists at Ticketgum.com sought to investigate whether FIFA’s top players* are truly the fans favourites. The numbers were found by comparing FIFA 18 player ratings with those that feature on Ranker.com* in order to see whether the public agree with FIFA’s analysis of who they determine are the world’s best players in 2018.

Under the category ‘The Best Current Soccer (Football) Players’ on Ranker, around 143 thousand people have cast 1.4M votes in order to determine who are the best players in the world right now.

Ticketgum discovered that there are some significant differences between FIFA’s official top 100 and that of football fanatics across the globe. Interestingly, although Ronaldo has been crowned FIFA’s champion player, he was only ranked 2^nd by the people. Dropping the Instagram king down one place.

In contrast, Lionel Messi who was ranked 2^nd according to FIFA, reigned as the peoples favourite and knocked Ronaldo off the top spot.

Neymar was found to be a non-mover with the people also ranking him 3^rd. However, Luis Suarez dropped down one from 4^th to 5^th, meaning Manuel Neuer as a result climbed one place from 5^th to 4^th according to the public vote.

Surprisingly, despite Luka Modric  crowned ‘The Best FIFA Men’s Player’ at the FIFA Awards 2018 and just ranked 12^th according to the FIFA player ratings, the fans who voted, classified Modric as the 16^th best footballer in 2018.

However, a few fan favourites seemingly rose up the rankings, with Gareth Bale moving up 10 from 17^th to 7^th according to the fan’s votes, as well as Sergio Aguero who experienced a positive increase of six places; from 18^th to 12^th.

Gonzalo Higuain and Giorgio Chiellini however, are seemingly over-rated by FIFA’s standards, as the pair suffered the largest falls according to public likeability. Higuain who was ranked 10^th according to FIFA’s player rankings dropped a staggering 54 places to 64^th with the fans vote. Chiellini followed suit, falling a whopping 50 places from 16^th to 66^th.