Louis van Gaal believes a player from Germany should be named this year's Ballon d'Or winner rather than Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.
Again, the Spain-based duo are in the running for world football's top individual award but Manchester United manager van Gaal is of the belief that somebody from the World Cup-winning team should land the prize.
"You always have to win something and the best thing to win is the World Championship," van Gaal told MUTV.
"I hope it shall be a German player because they deserve it. In Germany, the level of the matches in the Bundesliga is also very high."
Real Madrid's Toni Kroos, the retired Philipp Lahm and Bayern Munich quartet Thomas Muller, Manuel Neuer, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mario Gotze are the Germans who have been nominated on the 23-man FIFA shortlist for the Ballon d'Or.
