Lewandowski – Best FIFA Men’s Player of the Year. A fair decision, but a small consolation for the missed Ballon d'Or

Good news for Robert Lewandowski’s fans – the Pole was recognized as the best player of the past year. Unfortunately, we are not talking about the Golden Ball, but about a much less prestigious award named The Best FIFA Football Awards. We will tell you why the award of the International Football Federation is far from the prestige of the Ballon d'Or.

The International Football Federation has only awarded the Player of the Year award since 2017 (for 2016). The winner is chosen by the captains and head coaches of all the national teams of the world from the national associations that are members of FIFA, as well as fans and invited experts from more than 300 world media. The difference from the Golden Ball, the results of which depend solely on the votes of 180 journalists from different countries, is colossal.
The importance of The Best FIFA Awards is clearly indicated by the fact that even a person who is far from sports will name the winners of the Golden Ball in recent years, while the winners from FIFA are remembered only by geeks. At the same time, the lists of the best are very similar, just that everyone, by and large, does not care about the award of the International Football Federation.

Judge for yourself, the main tops of the two awards are almost the same: Cristiano Ronaldo took both awards in 2016, and in 2017, Luka Modrić won in 2018, and Lionel Messi in 2019. But over the past two years, FIFA has fairly awarded Robert Lewandowski, until France Football magazine in 2020 gave the Ballon d'Or to no one at all (“thanks” to Covid), and in 2021 suddenly awarded the prize to Messi.

It will be especially amusing if, starting next year, FIFA and France Football will start awarding the same players year after year.

Messi won the Golden ball in 2021 only thanks to the big name and the happy ending of the fairy tale "Leo and the first trophy with the national team after the 2008 Olympics" the victory in the Copa América.
It doesn't matter that in terms of the cost of the squad, Argentina is the second on the continent after Brazil. It doesn't matter that the team with Messi should have already taken at least a few cups, but instead they were always knocked out of the Copa by random Chileans. If Leo had won at least one Copa América before, no one would have named him the best player of 2021. But it turned out that previous failures catapulted him to the main individual award. Such a paradox.

At the same time, Lewandowski is the absolute best player of the last two years. And Leo himself partially admitted this when he was awarded the Golden Ball 2021:

I would like to mention Robert Lewandowski separately. Competing with you is a great honor. Everyone knows that last year you were a winner. I think France Football should have given you the Golden ball in 2020. You deserve it. It should be in your home.

Lionel Messi

It's good that Leo recognized the superiority of the Pole. It is a pity that it is partially.

Okay, besides the Copa América, what else will Messi be remembered for in 2021? Only one victory in the Copa del Rey and the top scorer title in La Liga with 30 goals scored. And there was also a 3rd place in the Spanish championship and relegation in the 1/8 Champions League with Barcelona, as well as a prolonged adaptation to PSG (1 goal in 11 matches in Ligue 1, seriously?).
If such achievements really deserve the golden ball, then in 2016 the award should have been given to Alexis Sanchez. He also won the Copa América (but not as a favorite) and the Cup of the country (read the previous words in brackets), at the same time scoring 25 goals in 52 matches for Arsenal. The Chilean then became only the tenth. But this is apparently different.

At the same time, in 2021, Lewandowski scored 41 goals in 29 matches in Bundesliga and, as it turned out, he broke the eternal record of Gerd Müller that held it on for 49 (!!!) years. Also, the Polish striker did not leave the field without a goal scored for seven months and scored 15 goals in 10 Champions League matches. And we are only talking about 2021, and a year earlier, Messi himself had no doubts about the Pole being unsurpassable.
In total, according to the results of 2021, Lewandowski scored 64 goals in 52 matches, while Messi has a much more modest statistic - 41 goals scored in 51 meetings. However, for some reason, Lewandowski's complete dominance was appreciated only in FIFA, and for France Football, Messi's media presence turned out to be much more important than Robert's achievements. It's just a shame that the value of the second prize is many times higher and everyone will soon forget about The Best FIFA award for a great Polish football player, as they did a year ago. Everyone is used to the fact that the best gets the Golden Ball and there is only one true reward. And no one cares about the copy.