Messi wins FIFA’s Best Male Player award, absent at ceremony
Argentina forward, Lionel Messi, has won the FIFA Best men’s award at a ceremony in London.
This is coming three months after he became Ballon d’Or champion for a record-breaking eighth time.
Inter Miami’s Messi, who was on a three-man shortlist alongside Manchester City striker Erling Haaland and Paris Saint-Germain talisman Kylian Mbappe, but emerged top of the votes to lift the individual accolade.
Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, claimed the men’s coach prize.
City’s Ederson collected the goalkeeper award, ahead of Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois and Al Hilal’s Yassine Bounou.
Messi began 2023 at PSG, before moving to Major League Soccer (MLS) club Inter Miami in June.
The 36-year-old picked up the best men’s player award for the third time since this format of the awards began in 2016, after doing so in 2019 and 2022.
He scored nine goals for PSG as they won the French Ligue 1 title and 10 goals in seven games as Inter Miami won the inaugural Leagues Cup in the United States.
Haaland scored a record 36 Premier League goals last season. In all competitions in 2022-23, he scored a club-record 52 goals – with 28 of them coming after the World Cup, plus another two goals this season before 20 August.
Like Messi, France’s Mbappe won the Ligue 1 title with PSG – and clinched a fifth consecutive Golden Boot.
The 25-year-old scored 18 goals for his French club during the window of 19 December, 2022 to 20 August, 2023 – the period the awards were based on.
The Fifa Best Awards generally cover a calendar year and are different to the Ballon d’Or awards, which reflect performances across a season.
However, this year, the men’s awards – and Puskas Award – are judged from 19 December, 2022 to 20 August 2023, because the Qatar World Cup was included in last year’s ceremony.
A mix of votes from national team players and captains, journalists and fans on Fifa’s website – with each counting for 25% – are used to decide the winners, with men’s and women’s awards for best coach and goalkeeper.
The Puskas award was decided by pundits.
Why Messi was absent
Lionel Messi did not attend the FIFA Best Awards. Here’s why.
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner was nominated after captaining Argentina to their 2022 World Cup triumph in Qatar, their first victory in the tournament since 1986.
According to journalist Ariel Senosiain on X, formally Twitter, Messi stayed in the US to train with Inter Miami rather than travel to London for the award.
Inter Miami are set to take part in seven friendly matches for their pre-season – six of which will be played on the road.
First, the Herons will take on El Salvador’s national team on January 19 before playing FC Dallas at the Cotton Bowl three days later.
They then embark on a huge tour of the Middle East and Asia, which includes two matches in Saudi Arabia against Al-Hilal on January 29 and then a matchup against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr on February 1.
From there, Inter Miami plays Hong Kong’s national team on February 4 before heading to Japan to play Vissel Kobe.
Finally, the club will return to Miami to take on Messi’s boyhood club Newell’s Old Boys.
Messi skippered Argentina to their success while scoring seven goals in his seven appearances and being named Player of the Tournament.
The World Cup win saw the pint-sized Argentinian become the ninth-ever player to have won the European Cup (Champions League), Ballon d’Or and World Cup.
Messi subsequently left Paris Saint-Germain in the summer to join Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami. There he quickly added to his trophy cabinet, netting 10 goals in seven games to fire his new side to the Leagues Cup, their first-ever piece of silverware.
Share your view on the story Messi wins FIFA’s Best Male Player award, absent at ceremony with Online News in the comments section.
