FIFA held its end of the year award ceremony last night which saw some surprising winners and some well deserved winners.
The night started with a small surprise as Tuchel’s coaching got him past the likes of Pep Guardiola in the race for the FIFA Men’s Coach of the Year. The blues have really taken a step in the right direction since 2020 when the former Chelsea player Frank Lampard set up a great team only to eventually hand over his work to Thomas Tuchel who got Chelsea the Champions League win as well.
The next couple of awards were for the Goal of the Year and the Fair Play award. In March, against Arsenal, Tottenham’s Erik Lamela scored a peach of a goal as he put the ball through a defender’s feet to get it into the far corner. That goal didn’t get the Spurs a win in the North London Derby but was enough to get Lamela the Best Goal of the Year award last night.
Denmark and their medical and coaching staff were honoured next with the Fair Play Award in accordance with their incredible reaction to the devastating Christian Eriksen incident during the Euro 2020 last year. The Danish midfielder collapsed mid match against Finland due to a cardiac event. The incident was horrifyingly scary but the players on pitch and medical staff reacted quickly by helping out the fallen Eriksen. Christian later recovered from this and continued playing in Italy before just recently joining Brentford in the Premier League.
In a surprising turn of events neither Donaruma nor Neur got the Goalkeeper of the Year award as Chelsea’s Mendy took the gold home. The Female Goalkeeper of the Year award went to the Lyon and Chile star Christiane Endler for her remarkable year.
Finally the Player of the Year award came around with players like Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappe, Salah and more in contention. After this year’s Ballon D’or not going to Lewandowski, winning the Player of the Year award finally gave the Polish star some relief and respect. As for the Women’s Player of the Year, the Barcelona star and Ballon D’or winner, Putellas took the gold back to the Camp Nou.