By Paul Nicholson
December 22 – As FIFA gathers votes from players, coaches and the media for its annual Ballon D’Or awards ceremony to be held January 16 in Zurich, the CIES Football Observatory has come up with its own list of the best performing big five European league players in 2015 and created, on the basis of stats analysis, the best overall team and best U23 team.
The best XI of 2015: IN – Messi, Suarez, Cazorla, Ozil; OUT – Ronaldo, Bale, Neymar
