The world football governing body, FIFA on Monday, September 3rd, announced the final nominees for different categories of the 2018 FIFA BEST Awards at an event in London.
To unveil the final nominees, FIFA called a few legends of the game which includes Nigeria’s Kanu Nwankwo who made 87 appearances for the Super Eagles of Nigeria and led Nigeria to a gold medal at the football event of the 1996 Olympic games, former internationals Col Campbell (England), Peter Schmeichel (Denmark) and Kelly Smith (England).
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The FIFA Men’s player of the year category which saw Portuguese sensation and current Juventus forward, Cristiano Ronaldo who won the last 2 editions of the award, up against Croatian star,his former Real Madrid teammate and current winner of the UEFA Men’s player of year, Luka Modric and Egyptian and Liverpool playmaker Mohamed Salah in the final 3, caused a stir among football enthusiasts as Argentine and Barcelona midfield maestro, Lionel Messi who had a stellar season with Barcelona winning the La Liga, a Copa del Rey and emerged as the highest league goal scorer in Europe last season with 34 goals, 2 ahead of Mo Salah who scored 32 goals and 8 ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo who managed just 26 goals (his worst goal return since joining Real Madrid in 2009), was unexpectedly absent despite making it to the initial 10-man shortlist. This is the first time Messi who boast of 5 Ballon d’Or trophies alongside perceived arch rival, Cristiano Ronaldo has failed to make it to the top 3 finalists since 2008.
In other categories, former Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane will battle for the coach year prize with Croatia’s Dalic Zlatko and France’s Dibier Dechamp. Leicester city’s Danish shot stopper, Kasper Schmeichel is in contention with Belgian and now Real Madrid keeper, Thibaut Courtois and France and Tottenham star, Hugo Lloris for the goalkeeper of the year award. For the FIFA women’s best player award, Brazil’s forward, Marta will battle Norway’s Ada Hegerberg and Germany’s Dzsenifer Marozsan. While, Lyon’s Reynald Pedro will be up against Japan’s Asako Takakura and Serina Wiegman of Netherlands for the prize of women’s coach of the year.
FIFA’s The Best award is voted for by 4 groups each with 25 percent weight in the final vote: national team coaches, national team captains, high profile journalists and football fans.
The 2018 edition of the award will hold on Monday, September 24th at Royal Festival Hall in London.
