Real Madrid ace, Cristiano Ronaldo, has won the Fifa men’s player of the year award!
Ronaldo scored 44 goals in 48 games in 2017. Thirty-three were scored in Real Madrid’s jersey while he found the net 11 times for the Portuguese national team.
The ceremony was held at the London Palladium on Monday with Messi and Neymar both present in the crowd. And we saw Cristiano shaking hands with Messi after collecting his award.
‘Thank you a lot to the guys for voting for me!’ Ronaldo said.
He also mentioned his rivals from Barcelona and PSG. ‘I want to give a mention to Leo and Neymar to be here, Real Madrid supporters, my team-mates, my coach, my president — they support me all the year so I have to say thank you to them.’
‘We are in England for the first time and I win consecutive awards. This is a great moment for me.’
When it comes to women, Lieke Martens was awarded the women’s player award following Holland’s dream campaign at Euro 2017.
Martens, currently playing for Barcelona, topped Carli Lloyd, who won the award last year and Deyna Castellanos.
Numerous players and legends of football attended the ceremony. Some of them were Diego Maradona, Ronaldo Luis Nazario De Lima, Sergio Ramos and Frank Lampard, the Chelsea F.C. legend. Winners were decided by a jury of the club and international coaches, captains, media representatives and fans.
Of course, Ronaldo’s award was the main part of the event. It is no surprise that he got awarded since he had an amazing season where he won both the La Liga and UEFA Champion’s League with the ‘Los Blancos.’
Ronaldo has now won three of the last four Ballon d’Or awards plus the latest two Fifa Men’s Player awards.
This is the second time that Fifa ran its own awards following the end of their partnership with France Football’s Ballon d’Or in 2016.
Olivier Giroud who is currently playing for Arsenal won the Fifa Puskas Award for best goal after his scorpion kick against Crystal Palace in January.
Giroud’s flicked volley that came in off the crossbar beat Venezuela’s Deyna Castellanos and South African goalkeeper Oscarine Masuluke’s goals.
Chelsea boss, Antonio Conte, was a nominee for the men’s coach of the year but he lost to Zinedine Zidane even though he won the Premier League title in his first season in England.
Zizou became the first manager to win back-to-back Champions League titles after Real’s triumph over Juventus in May. He led Real to their first league title in five years and left behind him Massimiliano Allegri who he beat in May.
Gianluigi Buffon received the best goalkeeper award, so Juventus had someone to boast. The 39-year-old led Juventus to their sixth consecutive Serie A title, and he also kept a clean sheet for 600 minutes in Champions League! He didn’t let one in for 600 minutes only to lose to Real by a landslide.
‘I am very happy, for me it is a great honour to receive this award at my age,’ Buffon said.
No English players were named in the FifPro World XI. On top of that, there were no Premier League stars either featured in the World XI.
Paris St Germain’s Dani Alves and AC Milan’s Leonardo Bonucci were picked in defense, along with Madrid pair Sergio Ramos and Marcelo. Buffon was the goalkeeper. The midfield consisted of Modric, Kroos and Iniesta.
Ronaldo, Messi, and Neymar were up top where they sat in the three attacking spots.
Celtic fans won the Fan Award due to their celebrations in May for the 50th anniversary of the club winning the European Cup.
Celtic fans colored cards that spelled out ‘Lisbon Lions’ to pay homage to Celtic’s 1967 win against Inter Milan in the Portuguese capital.
Holland boss Sarina Wiegman won the women’s category coach award. She led the Dutch to the Euro 2017 title while the Fair Play Award went to Francis Kone.
Francis Kone took part in a heroic act where he saved the life of a goalkeeper. Martin Berkovec, the goalkeeper, almost suffocated by swallowing his tongue during a Czech league match in February.
