Patrick Barclay: Roy Hodgson deserves credit for casting his Ballon d'Or vote for Javier Mascherano

The Ballon d’Or ceremony is where football meets the Oscars.

It’s a meeting that should never have taken place. For footballers to parade their individuality in this way is tasteless, the antithesis of a team game, and, if Roy Hodgson was trying to say as much when he cast his vote for Argentina’s Javier Mascherano, the epitome of a team player, then good for him.

I’d have gone, like most people, for Cristiano Ronaldo. The only argument against him was that he had a generally forgettable World Cup. Mascherano was excellent in Brazil, as were Manuel Neuer, Philipp Lahm and Toni Kroos, while Lionel Messi had his moments out there, if not quite enough to make up the leeway established by Ronaldo in the Champions League.

In La Liga, there could have been no finer example of teamwork as football’s leading force than the triumphant Atletico Madrid, who also reached the Champions League final, and even they featured, in Diego Costa, an individual who could have been excused a wry smile as the usual suspects strutted the Zurich stage.

But let’s not keep quibbling. Ronaldo is, like Messi, a great player in a golden age this pair have done much to create. He is not flattered by a third award.

In England we are naturally intrigued by the England manager’s vote. ‘’Love Roy Hodgson going for a clean sheet,’’ tweeted Jamie Carragher, alluding to his top three: Mascherano, Lahm and Neuer. Shades of the 2006 award to Fabio Cannavaro, rightly adjudged top man of the World Cup that year.

But for real controversy, what about the 2014 team of the year — with two Brazilian centre-backs? True, Thiago Silva missed the 7-1 rout by the Germans. But David Luiz didn’t. I know the world is short of outstanding central defenders, but how Luiz could edge out, say, Diego Godin is a mystery. If that had been down to Hodgson, we really would have cause for concern.