The world of soccer was last night shaken to high heavens when FIFA rewarded players performance with recognition awards right there in Milan. Barcelona and Argentine player Lionel Messi was named the best player of the year who beat old time rival; Juventus Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool’ Virgil Van Dijk. Messi won the award for record six times following his overall goals of 51 last season as he helped his club lift the La Liga and as well to reach the Champions league semi finals where they lost to Liverpool.
As expected, there were many argument as to why the award should go to Messi seeing he won less trophies when compared to Cristiano Ronaldo who won the Italian Serie A and European National league competition while others opined that Van Djik should have be given the award for lifting the UEFA Champions league and reaching the finals of European Nation finals.
While l may not totally disagree with FIFA on this stem from the fact that, the award is for individual performance not actually looking at the team achievement only because no player makes a team even though some are the heart beat of their club. Lionel Messi reached the semi finals of the Champions league while Juventus exited in the knock out phase. Messi also came top as the tournament highest goal scorer and did display some individual performance.
In Liverpool, many factors must have played out against van Dijk as there were a lot of individual efforts in the team from the Keeper to the duo of Mane and Salah.
Another strong argument might come from the voting pattern for this award. If coaches of national teams, their captain and some selected journalist are the panelist, they there be gross bias? However, the award has been lost and won, a big congratulations to Lionel Messi. Do you think Messi deserved the award base of individual brilliance?
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