Messi can crown dream year with FIFA choice – 26/02/2023 – Sport

Until November 19 of last year, Fifa’s choice of the best in the world seemed like a formality. Karim Benzema, star of Real Madrid (ESP) champions of the Champions League and winner of the Ballon d’Or, was about to lead the French attack at the World Cup in Qatar.

Prior to his tournament debut, he was injured and cut. The World Cup was dominated by Lionel Messi, 35, who had a performance for history and led Argentina to the cup, fulfilling the biggest dream of his career. The result may have turned the tables for the election of the greatest player on the planet in the season.

The winner will be announced this Monday (27th), at 5 pm (Brasília time), broadcast by ESPN, Star + and FIFA’s YouTube channel.

The other finalist is fellow Frenchman Kylian Mbappé, 24, top scorer in the Cup, with eight goals, and the second to score three times in the final. The first had been the Englishman Geoff Hurst, in 1966.

There is a script component if Messi wins. One of the greatest players in the history of football (for Pep Guardiola, the best of all) reaches his maximum career goal in the last game he played in the sport’s most important competition.

He can increase his hegemony in the FIFA award. It would be his seventh trophy, after being first in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2019. The second with more achievements is the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo (five).

Professional since 2003, Messi was a finalist for the award for the first time in 2007. Since then, only in 2018 has he not been among the top three. It was the year in which Luka Modric, the best in the Russian Cup, won, in a trend that can be maintained by the Argentine, the only South American elected since Kaká’s victory in 2007.

The choice of Messi would be the reestablishment of the tendency of a winner of the World Cup to be chosen best of the world, something that does not occur since the Italian defender Fabio Cannavaro, in 2006. Voting, carried out by team captains and coaches and journalists, usually awards athletes from teams that won titles during the season.

In 2010 and 2014, when the World Cups were held in South Africa and Brazil, Messi won.

The Argentine’s story was one that Benzema could have starred in. Exiled from the French national team between 2015 and 2021, he lost the chance to be world champion in 2018 for being accused of participating in extortion against Mathieu Valbuena, his castmate. He made a surprising comeback for Euro 2021 and promised a deadly strike partnership in Qatar alongside Mbappé.

This lasted until the injury. A day after Messi’s consecration in Lusail, Benzema announced that he would no longer play for the national team.

Not winning would be yet another “almost” experience for Mbappé since he won the 2018 World Cup and was named the best young player in Russia.

He failed in successive attempts to make Paris Saint-Germain lift the Champions League. He is the main star of a billionaire team, which has Messi and Neymar in attack. He missed the decisive penalty that eliminated France in Euro 2021. He shone in Qatar and rescued his selection from what seemed to be a certain defeat in the final, only to be disappointed in the penalty shootout.

The youngest among the finalists, Mbappé knows that time is on his side, but not winning will be a disappointment for the scorer who, every time he takes to the pitch, says to himself: “I’m the best.”

It would be different for Messi. Being elected by FIFA would be the icing on the cake, the final crowning of a year of dreams in what may be his last with a real chance of being selected. For Benzema, it would be a consolation prize after the sadness in Qatar.

The entity changed the election criteria for this year. Not only will the pre-election season be taken into account, but also the six months of the current one. Thus, voters must evaluate the performance of players in the 2021-2022 season and at the beginning of the 2022-2023 season.

Putellas seeks second straight female election

In the female category, the Spanish Alexia Putellas tries to be elected for the second consecutive year. She will compete with the English Beth Mead and the American Alex Morgan.

Brazil has not had a finalist for the award since 2018, when Marta won the trophy.

Mead was named the best player at last year’s Euros, which England won. She was also one of the top scorers, alongside German Alexandra Popp, both with six goals. That could make them favorites to win, although Putellas scored 34 goals for Barcelona last season in Europe. At 11, she was the top scorer in the Champions League.

Alex Morgan arrives at the accredited final for having been the top scorer in the last league in the United States.