As if his recent World Cup win wasn’t enough, Lionel Messi has officially been named Best FIFA Men’s Player for 2022 — beating out his Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe, as well as Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema.
Messi took out the men’s honour after a stellar year that concluded in his first ever World Cup victory, with Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni and goal keeper Emiliano Martinez also rounding out a huge win for the reigning champions.
“It’s amazing. It was a tremendous year and it is an honour for me to be here tonight and win this award,” said Messi in his acceptance speech.
“I want to express my thanks to [coach Lionel] Scaloni and my teammates; without them I would not be here.
“I achieved a dream I had been hoping for so long and finally I achieved it. It’s a dream for any player; very few people can achieve that and I was lucky enough to do so.”
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Best FIFA Award winners in full
Sadly, no Australians managed to take out an award at this year’s ceremony, despite the Matildas Sam Kerr being nominated for Best FIFA Women’s Player and Alou Kuol copping a Puskas nomination. The full list of winners is as follows:
Best Fifa Women’s Player: Alexia Putellas
Best Fifa Men’s Player: Lionel Messi
Best Fifa Women’s Coach: Sarina Wiegman
Best Fifa Men’s Coach: Lionel Scaloni
Best Fifa Women’s Goalkeeper: Mary Earps
Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper: Emiliano Martínez
Fifa Puskás Award: Marcin Oleksy
The first ever amputee to win the PUSKÁS AWARD 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱
— Nico Cantor (@Nicocantor1) February 27, 2023
Marcin Oleksy’s overhead finish for Warta Poznán is officially the best goal of 2022 🇵🇱 WHAT A FINISH!! 💥💥💥 pic.twitter.com/CG5FoIkHXz
What did Messi achieve this year?
2022 was a huge year for Messi, who captained Argentina to their first World Cup victory since the days of Diego Maradona. He scored seven goals and provided three assists throughout the campaign, winning the Golden Ball and narrowly missing out on the Golden Boot (which went to his PSG teammate Mbappe).
In terms of club football, Messi scored 16 goals and provided 14 assists across 27 games, and won Ligue 1 and the Trophée des Champions.
What does Messi have in his trophy cabinet now?
While fans and critics will continue to debate whether or not Messi is the GOAT for the rest of time, his trophy cabinet is certainly getting full at this point.
2022 marks his second Best FIFA Men’s Player honour (his first being in 2019), which adds to a laundry list of personal accomplishments including a record seven Ballon d’Or awards, a FIFA World Player of the Year (2009), two FIFA World Cup Golden Balls (2014, 2022) and two FIFA Club World Cup Golden Balls (2009, 2011) — as well as countless other smaller honours.
He also holds the record for the most goals in La Liga (474) and most assists in football history (352).
In his club football career, he holds 35 trophies with Barcelona — including 10 La Liga titles and four UEFA Champions League trophies. In his debut season at PSG he took out Ligue 1 and Trophee des Champions.
PSG also sits comfortably at the top of the Ligue 1 table for the 2022-23 season so far, so Messi could continue to add to the trophy cabinet before he eventually leaves the club.
The only real question that remains now is where will Messi go next?