Lionel Messi has seven Ballon d’Or wins to Cristiano Ronaldo’s five, but what about their Best FIFA Football Awards records?
It’s almost time for what I think we can safely say is still the second biggest award ceremony in world soccer (sorry FIFA). 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 seventh edition in 2023, specifically on Monday 27 February in Paris.
Some star names – both old and new – will be rewarded for their fine displays in the calendar year of 2022 (and a little bit longer in some cases). One man who will definitely not be winning anything this year, however, is Cristiano Ronaldo, who, for the first time in what feels like forever, hasn’t been nominated for something he could’ve been nominated for.
Have we seen the last of the Portuguese in this type of company? It if were any other 38-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 seven Ballon d’Ors to Ronaldo’s five but trails the Portuguese in ‘Best’ awards…but maybe not for long. Messi’s only victory so far came in 2019 for his performances in 2018-19, when he scored 51 goals in 50 games (still only his sixth best goalscoring season in his career) as Barcelona won LaLiga but came up short everywhere else.
The PSG star has finished second in the voting on three occasions and has only ever failed to make the top three once. Despite some below-par club performances in 2021-22, his superb performances at the 2022 World Cup, won by Argentina, must put him in with a great chance of drawing level with Ronaldo and Lewandowski. PSG teammate Kylian Mbappé, who scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final and won the Golden Boot at the tournament, and current Ballon d’Or holder Karim Benzema, who won the Champions League with Madrid, are this year’s other finalists.