Lionel Messi nominated by FIFA with Lewandowski and Salah to fight for The Best

Shubham Bangwal January 7, 2022

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FIFA announced the finalists for The Best award on Friday and the surprise was that Jorginho, a Chelsea footballer, was left out of the list of the three nominees.

Leo Messi, champion of the Ballon d’Or just over a month ago, will compete with Robert Lewandowski and Mohamed Salah for an award that both the Argentine and the Pole have achieved. The award is presented, along with the rest of the FIFA The Best gala, on January 17.

In fact, the last two champions of The Best are surely the favorites. Lewandowski, a Bayern Munich player, took him in 2020 after a stratospheric and record-breaking season in the Bundesliga, while Leo Messi took him in 2019.

Both, surely, are the favorites to take this The Best. Leo Messi can start as a favorite for having already taken the Ballon d’Or, although it was in a tight way. The Paris Saint Germain player has not spent some good last months in his new team, but he lifted the Copa América with Argentina being the absolute leader of the team and also the Copa del Rey with Barça, with which he scored 28 goals in 2021 .

Lewandowski, one more season, was unstoppable again in the face of goal and was essential for Bayern to triumph in the Bundesliga, as well as in the Super Cup. The Pole scored 43 goals in 34 games in 2021, setting a record in Germany.

The one who has sneaked in, and with merit, has been Mohamed Salah, who has surely been the best player in the world in this second half of 2021. The Egyptian has left with Liverpool, with 16 goals and 9 assists so far of Premier League, making implausible plays.

Jorginho, the bitter surprise

Regarding the finalists of the Ballon d’Or, the one who has fallen out of the three finalists has been Jorginho, who last year was champion of the Champions League and the Eurocup, with an important role in both teams, although perhaps he did not perform at the same level individually.

Messi arrived in Paris and PSG published a report on his health https://t.co/lDC2btj4Zo pic.twitter.com/8R6FR7kY25

– missionsonline.net (@misionesonline) January 5, 2022

Sami Khedira himself, in charge of saying the finalists, clarified that “the award is individual, not group,” to explain the absence of the Italian-Brazilian, who was ranked third in the award given by L’Equip.

Other absences that can be talked about are those of Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappé, the two top favorites to fight for The Best in the coming years.