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Pep Guardiola is astonished that his “Fourmidables” team was completely snubbed in the Fifa best player awards.

None of his Manchester City stars have made the ten-man short-list, even though second-placed Liverpool are represented by Mo Salah, Virgil Van Dijk and Sadio Mane.

The Merseysiders were rightly rewarded for winning the Champions League, but Guardiola admitted he was surprised that none of his players were included – especially as Bernardo Silva racked up five trophies in the season, adding the Euro Nations League with Portugal to his domestic clean sweep with the Blues.

Guardiola pointed out that the English individual awards were flooded with City nominations – with Aymeric Laporte, Fernandinho, Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling all in the best XI for the season.

Sterling also won young player of the year, and was one of three City players – with Bernardo and Aguero – on the six-man short-list for the main player of the year award.

The fact that none of them made the Fifa list had Guardiola flabberghasted.

“I'm not going to say the 10 guys nominated for this award don’t deserve it,” he said.

“But, for example, for the Premier League awards we had five or six nominated. So I was a little bit surprised, because they were incredible. We won four titles and we were not able to be, even once, in this list.”

He then questioned the fact that the nominations heavily favoured success in the Champions League, which he says is won over the knockout phases.

He said, with a dose of sarcasm: “Maybe because, you know, it is seven games. For this award it is seven games – the eighth-finals, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. When you win the Champions League, you will be there.

“In the other ten or 11 months they don't care. For these kind of awards, for these kind of prizes, maybe you have to win five titles or maybe Bernardo needs six.”

"Maybe we have to win five or six or get 250 points to be considered to be there next season. We are going to try."