Last week, FIFA unveiled the finalists for their annual Best Men’s Player of the Year award. As usual, there were three nominees selected as finalists, with the winner to be revealed on Sept. 24 in London. Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modrić and Mohamed Salah were selected based on “respective achievements during the period from 3 July 2017 to 15 July 2018,” per FIFA’s website.
For those who have followed soccer in the past year, the omission of Lionel Messi has been the top story in the past few days. Widely considered to be the greatest of all time, the exclusion of Messi has come as a shock to everyone, including new Spain boss and former Barcelona manager Luis “Lucho” Enrique.
“If you have to give an award to the best in the world, I would give it to Leo Messi. Without a doubt. He’s a step ahead of every other player,” Enrique said of his former player.
“The award is for the best player in the world. For me, today, it’s Messi. Just like in previous years… When he’s not there, it loses credibility. It doesn’t matter who wins the World Cup or the Champions League. He’s the best,” Filipe Luís, a defender for Atletico Madrid, said.
Enrique and Filipe Luís’s comments are spot on. Anyone who watches him should easily be able to say that he’s superior to his rival and expected winner of the award, Cristiano Ronaldo, in nearly every way.
Messi is better at dribbling, passing and arguably shooting than Ronaldo. He has better acceleration, and you would be hard pressed to find an instance of Messi diving in the penalty area.

A common argument used by Ronaldo’s advocates is that he is a better goalscorer than Messi. And yet Messi scored more goals across La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa Del Rey last year than Cristiano Ronaldo. On top of that, he led Ronaldo, Modrić and Salah in every meaningful attacking stat, including Goals, Chances Created, Dribbles and Man of the Match awards, as well as being tied for most assists in La Liga.
All of this becomes even more impressive when you realize that this means Messi bested the likes of Mohamed Salah on goals, Kevin de Bruyne on assists, Neymar on dribbles, Mesut Özil on chances created and Paulo Dybala on free kicks. Each of these players is among the best in their respective position, and Messi was better than all of them all while covering more space than any of them.
While it’s true that the other finalists had more team success on the larger stage (Modrić led Croatia to the finals of the World Cup while all three appeared in the Champions League final), this is supposed to be an award for individual performance.
The statistics and highlights don’t lie. No matter who FIFA names the Best, there was simply no better player in the world last year than Lionel Messi.

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