Luis Enrique feels Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique should be on the 59-man Fifa Ballon d’Or shortlist, although he has no doubts over who should win the overall award.
FIFA is yet to officially announce the initial shortlist for the 2015 accolade, although a leak has appeared in various European media outlets, with Bayern Munich among the teams to publicly congratulate their nominated players from the reported list.
Luis Enrique also acknowledged the presence of seven of his stars – Claudio Bravo, Andres Iniesta, Javier Mascherano, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez.
He did, though, state he disagreed with the absence of Alba, Busquets and Pique and argued a number of his other squad members also had strong claims for inclusion after their treble-winning achievements last season.
Messi is the hot favourite for the award, which would end a run of two conseuctive victories from Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, and despite the controversy over the 59-man shortlist, Luis Enrique was in no doubt over who should ultimately win the prize.
“There are seven Barcelona names on it and that is already good,” said Luis Enrique.
“But Pique, Busquets, Jordi Alba and several others in my squad deserve to be on that list based on what they did last year.
“I would love to nominate the whole squad. Who does the list? FIFA? I am not part of FIFA and it is not my decision.
“But I think this year it is pretty clear and I don’t have any doubts about who the winner of the Golden Ball will be.”