MONTEVIDEO, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese football phenomenon Cristiano Ronaldo was voted by European sports reporters Europe's best football player for the second year in a row.
The results of the survey, carried out by Uruguay's El Pais daily and released on Tuesday, showed 89 of the 144 reporters queried named the Real Madrid forward as the region's top player.
German goalie Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich) and Argentina's Lionel Messi (Barcelona) came in distant second and third places, with 19 and 16 votes, respectively.
Ronaldo "was again the grand star (of Real Madrid), winning the coveted Champions League title for the tenth time," the daily said.
Real Madrid also leads the Spanish League's 2014-2015 season with a total of 25 goals, the daily added.
In other categories, the title of Europe's best coach went to Argentina's Diego Simeone, who coached Atletico Madrid to win the Spanish League's 2013-2014 season and the Champions League final of the Union of European Football Federations (UEFA).
Simeone, who garnered 68 votes, is the first non-European coach to win the prize since the survey was first carried out in 1991.