Messi, chosen as the best player of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, will go for his second The Best award for best player but was present in all the nominations. In the first edition, which was delivered in 2017 but corresponded to 2016, the Rosario star lost the vote to Cristiano Ronaldo and the same thing happened the following year.
In 2018 he was left out of the finalists for the first time, he won it in 2019, in 2020 he came third and in 2021 he came second below the Pole Robert Lewandowski. The captain of the World Champion Argentine National Team shares the payroll with Julián Álvarez and twelve other footballers.
Messi appears as one of the candidates since the 2021/22 season will be taken into account and what happened until the end of the World Cup. The other competitors will be English Jude Bellingham; the French Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappé; the Belgian Kevin De Bruyne, the Norwegian Erling Haaland, the Moroccan Achraf Kakimi, the Brazilians Neymar and Vinicius Junior, the Croatian Luka Modric, the Polish Robert Lewandowski, the Senegalese Sadio Mané and the Egyptian Mohamed Salah.
If there are no surprises, Messi will be a finalist with Mbappé and the podium would be completed by Benzema -winner of the Ballon d’Or- or Haaland, who stood out with an impressive record of goals on his arrival in the Premier League. From yesterday until February 3, fans will be able to vote in each of the seven categories and then the three finalists will be announced.
Surprise
In addition, the votes of the coaches and captains of all those selected from the federations associated with FIFA, and a group of journalists will be taken into account.
Scaloni, DT of the National Team, was nominated for best men’s coach along with four other renowned colleagues: Carlo Ancelotti from Italy, Didier Deschamps from France, Josep “Pep” Guardiola from Spain and Walid Regragui from Morocco.
After the recognition of the IFFHS, the DT from Santa Fe will try to be the first Argentine to win the award that already had Mauricio Pochettino (2019) and Marcelo Bielsa (2020) as nominees.
Emiliano “Dibu” Martínez, who won the Gold Glove in Qatar 2022, will also compete for The Best for the best goalkeeper. His competitors are the Brazilians Ederson and Alisson Becker; the Moroccan Yassine Bounou and the Belgian Thibaut Courtois, who was included by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) in the ideal eleven of 2022.
The surprise of the nominations was González Metilli, who with his volley at the Gigante de Arroyito was among the eleven best goals. They will also fight for the Puskas -which Erik Lamela won in the last edition- Mbappé’s second goal in the World Cup final against Argentina; and Richarlison’s goal against Serbia. FIFA also rewards the best fans and the Argentines who traveled to Qatar won the nomination.
“The journey from Argentina to Qatar is not exactly short, but Albiceleste fans have flocked to Doha since the start of the tournament to support Lionel Messi in his last attempt to win the only trophy that had remained elusive until then. ”, highlighted FIFA.
The other chosen ones were the Japanese recognized worldwide for cleaning the stadiums after each game; and Abdullah Al Salmi, a fan from Saudi Arabia, who walked 55 days through the desert to see his team at the World Cup.
female category
On the other hand, the Brazilian player Debinha and the Chilean goalkeeper Christiane Endler are the only two South Americans nominated in the women’s categories for FIFA’s The Best award. Debinha, a 31-year-old forward, was included among the 14 candidates for The Best award for the best FIFA player. The Chilean Endler, meanwhile, will compete with five other archers for the award.
In the preview of the Women’s World Cup that will begin in July in Australia and New Zealand, the European power was reflected with a wide dominance in the nominations for these awards.
The Spanish Alexia Putellas, winner of the award in 2021, heads the list of candidates for the best player for FIFA.
The others are Aitana Bonmatí (Spain and Barcelona), Debinha (Brazil and North Carolina Courage), Jessie Fleming (Canada and Chelsea), Ada Hegerberg (Norway and Olympique de Lyon), Sam Kerr (Australia and Chelsea), Beth Mead (England and Arsenal), Vivianne Miedema (Netherlands and Arsenal), Alex Morgan (USA and Orlando Pride/San Diego Wave), Lena Oberdorf (Germany and Wolfsburg), Alexandra Popp (Germany and Wolfsburg), Wendie Renard (France and Olympique de Lyon), Keira Walsh (England and Manchester City/Barcelona) and Leah Williamson (England and Arsenal).
Among the coaches they are also all European with the exception of the Swedish Pia Sundhage who leads the Brazilian team. The rest of the nominees are Sonia Bompastor (Olympique de Lyon), Emma Hayes (Chelsea), the English Bev Priestman (selected from Canada), Martina Voss-Tecklenburg (selected from Germany) and the Dutch Sarina Wiegman (selected from England).
Finally, the Chilean Endler, who plays for Olympique de Lyon, one of the clubs with the most nominations, will compete with the following goalkeepers: Ann-Katrin Berger (Germany and Chelsea), Mary Earps (England and Manchester United), Merle Frohms ( Germany and Eintracht Frankfurt/Wolfsburg), Alyssa Naeher (United States/Chicago Red Stars) and Sandra Paños García-Villamil (Spain and Barcelona).
In the Puskas award for the best goal, the French Amandine Henry stood out with one against Barcelona in the women’s Champions League; the Spanish Salma Paralluelo with her goal with Barcelona against Villarreal; and the English Alessia Russo in the duel against Sweden in the Women’s Eurocup.
Source: Ambito
I am Pierce Boyd, a driven and ambitious professional working in the news industry. I have been writing for 24 Hours Worlds for over five years, specializing in sports section coverage. During my tenure at the publication, I have built an impressive portfolio of articles that has earned me a reputation as an experienced journalist and content creator.
