{"id":74713,"date":"2023-02-28T12:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T10:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema"},"modified":"2023-02-28T14:37:53","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T12:37:53","slug":"lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.cc\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi Named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player Beating Mbappe, Benzema"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. <\/strong><\/span>Lionel Messi was named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player beating Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe and Real Madrid\u2019s Karim Benzema.<\/p>\n

Messi won the 2022 World Cup with Argentina<\/b> in December \u2013 the country\u2019s first in 36 years \u2013 ending his wait for the only major honour to have eluded him in his career.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s award was Messi\u2019s second FIFA Best title, his first coming in 2019. He has also won a record seven Ballon d\u2019Or awards. Speaking at the event held in Paris on Monday, the former Barcelona captain said:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing. It was a tremendous year and it is an honour for me to be here tonight and win this award.<\/p>\n

I want to express my thanks to [coach Lionel] Scaloni and my teammates; without them I would not be here.<\/p>\n

I achieved a dream I had been hoping for so long and finally I achieved it. It\u2019s a dream for any player; very few people can achieve that and I was lucky enough to do so.<\/p>\n

Lionel Messi also beat Kylian Mbappe to the Golden Ball trophy awarded by FIFA for the World Cup\u2019s best player.<\/p>\n

Messi scored seven goals at the World Cup in Qatar finishing one behind Golden Boot winner, Mbappe.<\/p>\n

Barcelona\u2019s Alexia Putellas won the Best FIFA Women\u2019s award for the second year running, while Argentina\u2019s Scaloni and Emiliano Martinez got the honours for top men\u2019s coach and goalkeeper, respectively.<\/p>\n

Among the other women\u2019s winners, Mary Earps was named keeper of the year and England\u2019s Dutch coach Sarina Wiegman received the accolade for best coach.<\/p>\n

Polish amputee Marcin Oleksy won the Puskas prize for the best goal of the year for a spectacular acrobatic volley with Warta Poznan against Stal Rzeszow.<\/p>\n

Goalkeeper<\/b><\/p>\n

Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid, Belgium)<\/p>\n

Defenders<\/b><\/p>\n

Joao Cancelo (Manchester City\/Bayern Munich, Portugal) Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool, Netherlands), Achraf Hakimi (Paris Saint-Germain, Morocco)<\/p>\n

Midfielders<\/b><\/p>\n

Casemiro (Real Madrid\/Manchester United, Brazil) Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City, Belgium) Luka Modric (Real Madrid, Croatia)<\/p>\n

Forwards<\/b><\/p>\n

Karim Benzema (Real Madrid, France) Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund\/Manchester City, Norway) Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain, France) Lionel Messi (Paris Saint-Germain, Argentina)<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Zimbabwe<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Lionel Messi was named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player beating Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe and Real Madrid\u2019s Karim Benzema. Messi won the 2022 World Cup with Argentina in December \u2013 the country\u2019s first in 36 years \u2013 ending his wait for the only major honour to have eluded him in his career. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":74712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[1493,2189,19],"class_list":{"0":"post-74713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-sport","9":"tag-africa-press","10":"tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","11":"tag-zimbabwe"},"yoast_head":"\nLionel Messi Named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player Beating Mbappe, Benzema - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lionel Messi was named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player beating Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe and Real Madrid\u2019s Karim ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lionel Messi Named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player Beating Mbappe, Benzema\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lionel Messi was named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player beating Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe and Real Madrid\u2019s Karim ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"zimbabwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-02-28T10:10:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-28T12:37:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2023\/02\/postQueueImg_1677573632.43.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/lionel-messi-named-best-fifa-mens-player-beating-mbappe-benzema\",\"name\":\"Lionel Messi Named Best FIFA Men\u2019s Player Beating Mbappe, Benzema - 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