Though Ronaldo’s victory demonstrated that poor performances at last year’s World Cup could be easily forgotten, clearly the voters’ forgiveness would only stretch so far: Luis Suárez, whose brilliant displays for Liverpool made him the outstanding player of the 2013-14 Premier League season and earned a £75m summer transfer to Barça, but whose tournament in Brazil ended with a lengthy ban for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini, received not a single vote of any description