ROY Hodgson received an avalanche of criticism and mockery for his Ballon d'Or selections this week.

The reason is not so much because his choices deserved it as because that is his role to a lot of people in the country.

As far as many are concerned he is not so much there to run the national football team as to be ridiculed and undermined at every opportunity.

It is a sad culture which has evolved throughout the decades by sore losers who cannot understand why England don't win every match and tournament when – as their distorted thinking goes – 'we invented the game'.

This week's Hodgson-bashing was par for the course when it was revealed he picked Javier Mascherano as the best player in the world and did not include the winner Cristiano Ronaldo or runner-up Lionel Messi in his top three.

He became the story, which is sad but typical of how we treat the national coach.

But did he deserve it?

Well, compare it with the choices of the German national coach Joachim Lo?w.

Hodgson picked Barcelona's Mascherano and the Bayern Munich pair Philipp Lahm and Manuel Neuer.

Lo?w, a man who appears to be far more liked and respected on these shores, also picked Neuer and Lahm – in that order – with Bastian Schweinsteiger third.

Some might say Mascherano is better than Schweinsteiger although reasonable people would probably accept there is little to choose between them.

So Hodgson and Lo?w make almost identical choices, Hodgson gets slaughtered and Lo?w gets left alone. Typical.

No one's saying Ronaldo and Messi should not be in the top three.

But Hodgson is no different to many of the voters in making strange choices in this year's vote for the world player of the year.

Neither Ronaldo nor Messi picked each other, for example, a sign of the tactical voting which reduces the credibility of this award.

Ronaldo picked three Real Madrid team-mates Sergio Ramos, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema.

Messi had Mascherano along with another Barcelona colleague Andrés Iniesta and, in first place, fellow Argentine Ángel Di María.

Robin van Persie and Vincent Kompany were two of many to leave out Ronaldo and Messi all together. They also were left alone by the press and public.

Van Persie picked Arjen Robben, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Neuer, with Kompany going for his fellow Belgians Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard with Arjen Robben third.

It's ridiculous that people who have the honour of voting play the club or country loyalty card.

Does Schweinsteiger really think the trio he ticked – Neuer, Lahm and Thomas Müller – are the three best players in the world, or did the fact he plays with them at Bayern have anything to do with it?

The title of best player in the world went to the right person in the end, but it was in spite of many of those voting rather than because of them.