Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappe lead FIFA FIFPro World11 2018 but Salah misses out

Real Madrid once more weighed heavily in the pick of football's stars for 2018, contributing four current players as well as the new Juve signing. 

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have both been named in the FIFPro World XI, but Mohamed Salah and Neymar did not make the cut.

FIFA FIFPro World11 2018

Goalkeepers: David De Gea

Defenders: Dani Alves, Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane, Marcelo

Midfielders: Luka Modric, N'Golo Kante, Eden Hazard

Forwards: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe

World Cup winners Kylian Mbappe, Raphael Varane and N'Golo Kante were included with Manchester United star Paul Pogba missing out.

Kante's Chelsea team-mate Eden Hazard features in a four-man forward line, with David de Gea the only other Premier League star included.

The Manchester United man was curiously included in goal ahead of Thibaut Courtois, despite the Real Madrid and Belgium shot-stopper winning the Best Goalkeeper gong earlier in the ceremony.

Salah was another to miss out, having made the three-man shortlist for Best Player which was eventually won by Luka Modric.

Modric, who won the Golden Ball at the World Cup for his performances in Croatia's run to the final, is named in midfield with Real Madrid team-mates Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane and Marcelo also in the side.

Messi and Ronaldo were not in attendance to be recognised as they opted to skip Monday's ceremony at London's Royal Festival Hall

WORLD 11 FACTS:

- This is the 14th edition of the World 11. The award was established by FIFPro in 2005 and became part of FIFA’s annual award ceremony in 2009.

- Messi and Ronaldo have been selected for the 12 (straight) time. They both share the record for most appearances.

- Ramos is third on the all-time list with 9 appearances. The Real Madrid captain equaled Andres Iniesta’s total.

- Alves is fifth with 8 selections, Marcelo has 5 and Modric 4.

- Alves, Marcelo, Messi, Modric, Ramos and Ronaldo all have been part of the last 4 World 11’s.

- Iniesta is one of five players of last year’s World 11 who did not receive enough votes to return in this year’s team. The others are Gianluigi Buffon, Leonardo Bonucci, Toni Kroos and Neymar Jr. Of these five, Kroos was closest to making the team, even though he was 1,560 votes behind Hazard, the number three midfielder.

- Hazard is the first Belgian player to win a World 11 award.

- Mbappe is the youngest player ever to win the World 11 award. The record was previously hold by Messi, who won his first trophy for his performance during the 2006/2007 season, just before turning 20 in June 2007. Mbappe will celebrate his 20th birthday in December this year.

- Modric received most votes of all players: 20,473 footballers selected him for their personal World 11. Four other men who last season played for Real are in the top six: Marcelo (2nd), Ronaldo (3rd), Ramos (4th) and Varane (6th). Messi finished 5th as the first player not from Real. (Note: defenders statistically have a bigger chance of being selected than players from other lines, as players pick 4 defenders, 3 attackers and midfielders and 1 goalkeeper).

- Real Madrid has 5 players in the World 11 (Marcelo, Modric, Ramos, Ronaldo and Varane), the most of any club.

- Messi is the only Barcelona player in the World 11. Never before in the 14-year World 11 history did Barcelona have so few players in the team.

- Barcelona does hold the record for most all-time appearances: 49 times a player from the Catalan team was picked. Real is second with 43 awards. Chelsea is third with 11 thanks to Hazard and Kante’s trophies.

- De Gea is the first Premier League goalkeeper to be voted onto the World 11. The previous goalkeepers were playing in Serie A (Dida and Buffon), La Liga (Iker Casillas) or Bundesliga (Manuel Neuer).

- The Spanish League collected most awards again: 6. The English Premier League received 3, which was the first time since 2014 that an English club obtained an award. Angel Di Maria won that year, although he played the first half of that year at Real Madrid before joining Manchester United in the summer. In 2011, Wayne Rooney and Nemanja Vidic were the last two players to get a World 11 award after playing an entire year at an English club.

- In total, La Liga has received 94 World 11 awards, followed by the Premier League (27) and Serie A (23).

- Including Kante, Mbappe and Varane, 10 French players have won a World 11 trophy. Only Brazil has more winners: 11. Spain also has 10 players. However, the 10 Spanish players received 42 awards in total, while the French only picked up 11. The only French player with more than one award is Zinedine Zidane: 2 (2004/2005 and 2005/2006).

- FIFPro received most ballots from England (1,576), followed by Japan, Spain, Venezuela and Colombia.