By Samuel A. January 15, 2024
The 2023 FIFA The Best awards ceremony took place on Monday, the 15th of January, with Lionel Messi somehow edging out by merit to win the award over Manchester City striker Erling Haaland after a voting tie break. The two players – Messi and Haaland, were tied on points, so the final decision went down to who had the most national team captain votes, which made the Inter Miami star come out on top.
The 2023 award was for the best and most exceptional performer between December 19, 2022 and August 20, 2023, in which Haaland won the treble with Manchester City during that time span. Performance at the 2022 World Cup was only considered for the previous year’s award, which was won by Messi after captaining Argentina to glory in Qatar. The 36 year old clinched the Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint Germain in 2023 before moving to Major League Soccer team Inter Miami, where he won the 2023 Leagues Cup -a competition between MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX sides, scoring 10 goals in the competition, and that proved to be enough in the eyes of the voters and panel of judges to grant the football legend an EIGHTH award of its kind.
PSG forward Kylian Mbappe finished third in the voting, but none of the three finalists were in attendance at the awards ceremony in London.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was named best men’s coach at The Best FIFA Awards 2023 over Inter Milan boss Simone Inzaghi, former Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou, now at Tottenham, Luciano Spalletti, who took Napoli to the Serie A title, and Barcelona’s Xavi after he guided City to the treble last season, adding the Champions League crown to their Premier League and FA Cup triumphs. Guardiola said: “I want to share this trophy and moment with our owners at Manchester City. On behalf of my backroom staff and myself, I want to say thank you so much to our players, that they have done for this club for eight years already together, without exception all of them. Thanks so much for this incredible journey because they don’t know what it means every morning to go there and live with them, winning or losing it doesn’t matter – living with them has been incredible.”
There were six players from Guardiola’s City side named in the men’s team of the year – defenders John Stones, Kyle Walker and Ruben Dias, midfielders Bernardo Silva and Kevin De Bruyne and striker Erling Haaland. England and Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham was also included.
City shotstopper Ederson won the men’s best goalkeeper award, but couldn’t make it into the FIFPRO 11.
Aitana Bonmati and Mary Earps also won awards for the best player and goalkeeper respectively in the women’s category for their stellar 2023, with England manager Sarina Weigman also winning the best manager award.
