In the early morning of January 18 (Vietnam time), FIFA held a ceremony to award The Best 2021 to the most outstanding individuals in world football in the past year. In the most popular category, the award for Best Men's Player, Robert Lewandowski was the winner.
The Polish striker beat Lionel Messi and Mohamed Salah for the second consecutive year. FIFA's recognition is said to " restore justice" for the Bayern Munich striker, after he lost to Messi in the Golden Ball race presented by France Football magazine.
Not only that, at the Globe Soccer Award, the Ballon d'Or also went to another name - Kylian Mbappe, while Lewandowski only received the Best Striker award.
LewanGOLski had a memorable 2021 when they broke the record of legend Gerd Mullers 49-year tenure at Bayern for goals scored in a season. He has 41 goals in 29 appearances in the Bundesliga in the 2020-21 season. This season, the 33-year-old striker continues to show his fearsome scoring form with 23 goals in 19 matches.
With the race of female players, Alexia Putellas - midfielder of Barcelona club, was the winner.
In other categories, thanks to the Champions League title after only 4 months of working at Chelsea, Thomas Tuchel surpassed Roberto Mancini (Italy) and Pep Guardiola ( Man City) to win the best coach award.
Chelsea won another award as Best Goalkeeper, awarded to Edouard Mendy, beating Gianluigi Donnarumma (Italy) and Manuel Neuer ( Bayern).
As predicted by many people, Erik Lamela was awarded the FIFA puskas Award for his "Rona" shot against Arsenal when he was playing for Tottenham.
The Danish team and the medical team received the Fair-play award for their performance and reaction in the stroke of midfielder Christian Eriksen at EURO 2020. The fans of the two teams Denmark and Finland were also awarded the Best Fan award for shouting Eriksen's name when the player was taken to the hospital.
In the award ceremony conducted online, the winners of the awards can only receive awards and share their joy through the screen. But there is a tournament where the winner is present directly. That is a special award for Cristiano Ronaldo when he broke the international scoring record in 2021.
"super" squad
Among the voting categories, the Best Men's Players Team of the Year is also of great interest. FIFA coordinated with the World Professional Players Association FIFPro to conduct the voting, and with many excellent names on the attack line, they built a "super-huge" squad with a "super-huge" tactical formation - 3-3-4.
The 11 selected names include:
Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Donnarumma (AC Milan/Paris Saint-Germain)
Defenders: David Alaba ( Bayern Munich/Real Madrid), Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus), Ruben Dias ( Manchester City)
Midfielders: Kevin De Bruyne ( Manchester City), Jorginho (Ch Chelsea), N'Golo Kante (Ch Chelsea)
Forwards: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus/ Manchester United), Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund), Robert Lewandowski ( Bayern Munich), Lionel Messi (Barcelona/Paris Saint-Germain)
