World Cup winner Lionel Messi edged Kylian Mbappé once more, this time to take FIFA’s finest males’s participant award on Monday.
The perfect girls’s participant was Spain’s Alexia Putellas for a second straight yr.
After steering Argentina to World Cup glory in an epic remaining in opposition to Mbappé’s France final yr in Qatar, Messi gained the most effective participant vote in opposition to Mbappé and Karim Benzema to safe the FIFA prize for the seventh time in 14 years.
The three gamers made the ultimate shortlist in voting by a worldwide panel of nationwide staff captains and coaches, chosen journalists in every of FIFA’s 211 member nations, plus followers on-line.
The 35-year-old Messi additionally beat Mbappé — who was in search of his first finest participant award from FIFA — to the Golden Ball trophy awarded by FIFA for the World Cup’s finest participant.
🏆 🏆
#TheBest FIFA Males’s Participant Award 2022 goes to Lionel Messi! 🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/HXEugVH1t9— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) February 27, 2023
Putellas gained her award from Alex Morgan of the USA and Beth Mead, who led England to the European Championship title in 2022.
Barcelona playmaker Putellas made the highest three once more regardless of being injured days earlier than the Euro and lacking the match.
Mead was the joint prime scorer on the Euro, and was named the match’s finest participant. She sustained a severe knee damage in November whereas taking part in for Arsenal and will miss the Girls’s World Cup in July in Australia and New Zealand.
Morgan, who was second within the 2019 vote to teammate Megan Rapinoe, was participant of the match when the U.S. gained the CONCACAF W Championship final yr. She was additionally the joint prime scorer.
On prime of the world. 💫
@alexiaputellas has been topped #TheBest FIFA Girls’s Participant 2022! pic.twitter.com/Wtcgg8SUmO— FIFA Girls’s World Cup (@FIFAWWC) February 27, 2023
Earlier, Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni was voted FIFA males’s coach of the yr after main his staff to the World Cup title in December.
The ladies’s coach award went to Sarina Wiegman, who led the England to the title on the Girls’s European Championship.
Scaloni took over Argentina on the finish of 2018 on an interim foundation, and was extensively criticized for missing expertise as he had by no means coached knowledgeable staff. Earlier Monday, his contract because the nationwide staff coach was prolonged to the tip of the 2026 World Cup.
The opposite coaches on the shortlist have been Actual Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti and Manchester Metropolis’s Pep Guardiola.
The ladies’s goalkeeper award was given to Euro winner Mary Earps of England, and the most effective males’s goalkeeper was Argentina’s World Cup winner Emiliano Martínez.
The occasion in Paris was marked by tributes to Pelé, who died late final yr at age 82 following a battle with colon most cancers. Pelé’s spouse, Marcia Aoki, obtained a trophy honoring the soccer nice from the palms of former Brazil striker Ronaldo.
“I’ve three phrases to say to God, who gave us Edson, to Edson, who gave us Pelé, and to the world, who obtained them so nicely: ‘Grateful, grateful and grateful,’” she mentioned.