Who is the best player in world football?

For the past decade, if your answer was anything different to Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, your football knowledge would have been seriously questioned.

However, Luka Modric claimed FIFA’s ‘The Best’ award last month and is considered favourite for the 2018 Ballon d’Or - an accolade that has been shared by Messi and Ronaldo since 2007.

Despite the prospect of Modric dominating the individual awards in 2018 after helping Real Madrid win the Champions League and helping Croatia reach the World Cup final, it still seems to be a question of Messi or Ronaldo in terms of the best player in the world.

That’s certainly the view of Manchester United legend, Paul Scholes.





In an interview with ESPN, Scholes was asked: “Who is the best?” only two players were considered by the former midfielder.

But who got his vote?

Well, firstly, Scholes named three players he enjoyed watching before being asked the ultimate question.

"Modric, [Toni] Kroos, Messi. Watching Messi against Tottenham at Wembley made me think about the Messi and [Cristiano] Ronaldo debate again," Scholes admitted.





And when asked what he thought about the debate, there was only one winner.

"Messi. But Ronaldo is brilliant,” Scholes said.









Of course, Scholes played six seasons with Cristiano and yet he still believes Messi is better.

That’s rather interesting.

Incredibly, neither Ronaldo or Messi stand much chance of winning the Ballon d’Or in December.

Bookmakers rank Ronaldo as the 6/1 second-favourite, while Messi is behind the likes of Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe in the odds, rated at around 14/1.