Magnificent Messi crowned The Best

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On Monday night Lionel Messi’s spectacular 2022 season was honoured, as he won The Best FIFA award for best football player of the year.

Lionel Messi’s The Best award, for best player of the year, comes at the height of a season that would be acknowledged as remarkable by any measure, but perhaps made all the more spectacular given that Argentinian captain, having won everything there is to win, is still producing performances and statistics unmatched by anybody in the world.

Messi had taken the award home five times previously when it was combined with the Ballon d’Or, and has now won it twice since The Best became its own, separate award. He is also the oldest player to receive the accolade and – when taking into account the previous awards – is the only player to win it in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.

Already a seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, Messi in 2022 finally added the FIFA World Cup to his trophy cabinet. Football’s greatest prize had eluded him for so long throughout a career otherwise unparalleled, and following Argentina’s glory come the end of 2022, Messi firmly put an end to any dispute surrounding his greatness.

At 35 years old the Argentinian captain guided his side to World Cup victory, scoring seven goals and making three assists throughout a tournament in which he won five Man of the Match awards and became the first player in World Cup history to score in every knockout match. In winning those five MOTM awards, he broke the previous World Cup record of four awards, achieved by Messi himself in 2014 in Brazil.

Outside of  Messi’s astounding international showings in 2022, he has also scored 12 goals and contributed 12 assists for PSG in the same season. On Sunday evening, in another Messi masterclass, the playmaker reached a landmark of 700 goals in 840 games.

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Oliver Keohane