THE BEST FIFA FOOTBALL AWARDS
Who has more Best FIFA Football Awards? Messi or Ronaldo?
Lionel Messi has eight Ballon d’Or wins to Cristiano Ronaldo’s five, but what about their Best FIFA Football Awards records?
It’s almost time for the next installment of the Best FIFA Awards set to be staged in Doha Qatar. First introduced in 2017 with the aim of reviving the FIFA World Player Gala, which soccer’s governing body created as competition for the Ballon d’Or after the 1990 World Cup but discontinued in 2009, the Best FIFA Football Awards will hold its ninth edition in 2024 on December 17 in the Qatari capital.
Some star names – both old and new – will be rewarded for their fine displays in the calendar year of 2024. One man who will definitely not be winning anything this year, however, is Cristiano Ronaldo, who, once again hasn’t been nominated.
Have we seen the last of the Portuguese in this type of company? It if were any other 39-year-old playing in Saudi Arabia, you would say ‘yes’. Ronaldo has, of course, broken and set a whole host of records throughout his career and you probably won’t be too surprised to hear that he shares one when it comes to the Best FIFA Football Awards.
How many times has Cristiano Ronaldo won a Best FIFA Football Award?
Ronaldo is one of only four people to have one multiple ‘Best’ awards and was the very first to do so. He won the first Best FIFA Men’s Player award in 2017 for his performances between November 2015 and November 2016, when his goals fired Real Madrid to a second Champions League title in three years and his coaching from the touchline helped Portugal win their first ever major tournament at the European Championships.
12 months later and Ronaldo was back again to pick up the very same award. A quite simply incredible Champions League campaign in 2016-17 saw him scored five goals against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, a hat-trick in the semi-finals against Atlético Madrid and twice in the final as Madrid cruised to a second successive victory in the competition against Juventus. On top of all that, Los Blancos won LaLiga for the first time in five years.
Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski, who won in 2020 and 2021 for his performances for Poland and Bayern Munich, has since equalled Ronaldo’s tally of two Best Men’s Player awards, while coaches Jürgen Klopp and Sarina Wiegman have also won twice.
How many times has Lionel Messi won a Best FIFA Football Award?
It’s obviously impossible to spend a few minutes talking about Cristiano Ronaldo without making any kind of comparison to Lionel Messi, so here goes.
The Argentine has won eight Ballon d’Ors to Ronaldo’s five and beats the Portuguese in ‘Best’ awards…following his third win last year in London after the Rosario born scooped the World Cup with Argentina in the December 2022 final in Lusail (Qatar).
Messi’s 2024 win added to his maiden win in 2019 for his performances in 2018-19, when he scored 51 goals in 50 games (still only his sixth best goal scoring season in his career) as Barcelona won LaLiga but came up short everywhere else.
As was the case last year, CR7 fails to make the cut for The Best FIFA Men’s Player shortlist with Messi included alongside Haaland and Mbappe in the finalists.
Both Ronaldo and Messi join Polish striker Robert Lewandowski who scooped the award in 2020 and 2021.