Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, quite clearly the best player in the world, last night picked up his 3rd Ballon d’Or award, pipping team mate Xavi Hernandez and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo to the prize.

Messi is only the fourth player in history to collect the award 3 times and finds himself among good company in Johan Cruyff, Marco Van Basten and Michel Platini.

Messi gained 47.88% of the vote, beating Ronaldo (21.6%) by some distance.

Real Madrid’s Ronaldo and coach Jose Mourinho did not attend the award ceremony in preparation for Real’s match this evening.