2015 draws to a close and VAVEL UK present our first ever Top 50 Players in the World.
Voted for by both editors and writers at VAVEL UK, we have produced a refined list of the best players of this year. Today, we'll reveal the 10th best player of 2015 with Number One on January 1st, New Year's Day.
Keep following to see who has made it and who hasn't. There were some lengthy discussions over who slipped into this list.
You can see the Top 41-50 here. You can see the Top 31-40 here. You can see the Top 21-30 here. You can see the Top 11-20 here.
And so, for the fourth best player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo.
4 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid/Portugal)
Cristiano Ronaldo's 2015 was definitely not the best year in his career, but he showed, despite an allegedly bad relationship with his coach Rafa Benitez, that he is one of the best footballers at the moment and broke some records this year too. It is necessary to recognise that Ronaldo has suffered from Carlo Ancelotti's sacking and under Benitez' leadership because he struggles to enjoy playing football for Los Blancos and rumours about a move from Madrid pile up again, but his agent, Jorge Mendes, already clarified that "his star will finish his career at Madrid". Nevertheless, Paris Saint-Germain is definitely not reluctant to pay a utopian amount for CR7.
Back to his 2015: Three times in the new season he broke three records from Real's legend Raúl.
Against Espanyol, Ronaldo scored five goals and assisted one during the 6-0 home win at Santiago Bernabéu and left the pitch after 90 minutes with another outstanding performance. It was in that game, after much anticipation, that he overtook the club legend Raul as the best league scorer at the club with 230 goals in 203 matches, a stunning record and achievement.
Currently, the 30-year-old has scored 237 goals in 216 matches for Real Madrid in La Liga. The next record, which he snapped away from Raúl, was European top scorer for Real and most goals scored in competitive matches. Both records he won against Malmö during the 2-0 win on the second matchday of UEFA Champions League group stage. At that point, Ronaldo had scored 67 goals in UCL and 324 goals for his club in competitive matches. Another record which Ronaldo broke this season is the Champions League top goalscorer of all time. Against Shakhtar Donetsk on the first matchday of group stage, the former Manchester United player scored a hat trick and reached the 80 goals mark and had three more goals than his rival Lionel Messi.
Despite those broken records, all incredible achievements, Ronaldo fell short of expectations and had a worse year by comparison to last season. After the 16th matchday in La Liga, Cristiano Ronaldo had netted 12 goals and assisted four. In the Champions League, he scored an incredible record-breaking 11 goals plus three assists and beat his record from the previous year. But last year, he found the way to goal unbelievable 27 times and assisted four after 16 La Liga matches. By comparison, he increased his performance this season, because last time his goals came against opponents like FC Basel, Liverpool and Ludogorets and he only scored five goals and assisted two ones in the Champions League.
How well Ronaldo's 2016 will go it's difficult to say, because the permanent criticism on the coach Benitez, on the players and on the whole club might be negative, but could bring Real to another level, when the club want to perform and block criticism. The aims are clear: Real want to win everything which is still possible to win - so Real want to win La Liga and UEFA Champions League after their embarrassing mistake in the Copa del Rey against Cádiz.
For Ronaldo, there is a vital summer approaching, one that could be one of his last international tournaments as Portugal captain. The Portuguese will face Austria, Hungary and Iceland in the group stage of UEFA EURO 2016 in France and will definitely want to get better results than in previous tournaments. To win the group and go places in the European Championshipss is definitely one of the main wishes in Cristiano Ronaldo's 2016.