FIFA has unveiled the trio of players who will compete for The Best award for Best Footballer of the Year

FIFA has narrowed the list of 11 candidates for The Best Footballer of the Year award to just three players, including Robert Lewandowski, Lionel Messi and Mohamed Salah. Will the Polish cannonballer defend last year’s win, or will the Argentine magician get the next trophy? The Egyptian football god is certainly not out of the picture.

Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland, Jorginho, N’Golo Kante, Kevin De Bruyne, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar have dropped out of the 11-man nomination.

The awards ceremony is scheduled for 17 January and of course, besides the best footballer of the year, there will be other awards to be handed out. Among others, the best female footballer of the year will be announced, which will come from the trio of Sam Kerr, Jennifer Hermoso and the favourite Alexia Putellas, who won the Ballon d’Or last year.

For Czech fans, the FIFA awards will be very attractive this time as one of them could be awarded to a Czech, namely Patrik Schick, who will compete for the Ferenc Puskás Award for the most beautiful goal of the year. His half-court shot at the Euros certainly has a great chance of winning.

Lewandowski, Messi or Salah?

But of course, most attention will be focused on who will win the main prize, the one for the best footballer of 2021.

The big favourite will surely be Messi, who won his 7th Ballon d’Or last year when he celebrated his Copa del Rey victory with Barcelona and finally won the trophy with Argentina, who dominated the Copa América.

However, Salah also had a great year for Liverpool. However, he is the least counted on in the nominated trio.

Messi’s biggest rival, of course, will be Lewandowski, who dominated this award last time around, beating Cristiano Ronaldo (38 votes) and Lionel Messi (35 votes) with 52 votes.

Source