Paris: Lionel Messi of Argentina won the Best FIFA Men’s Player Award 2022 and Argentina was the biggest winner of the Best FIFA Football Awards 2022 here.
This is the second time Messi won the award after he first won it in 2019 and Argentina, champion of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, pocketed away with four trophies at the ceremony, reports Xinhua news agency.
Argentina’s head coach Lionel Scaloni won the Best Men’s Coach Award, Emiliano Martinez won the Best Men’s Goalkeeper Award and the Argentine Fans won the Best Fan Award for the first time.
Alexia Putellas of Spain won the Best FIFA Women’s Player Award 2022 for the second time in a row.
After the opening speech of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, the ceremony started with a video tribute to Brazilian legend Pele, who passed away at age of 82 on December 29, 2022.
Pele’s wife Marcia Aoki received a special recognition award from Brazilian legend Ronaldo and President Infantino.
The Best Women’s Goalkeeper was Mary Earps of England and the Best Women’s Coach went to Sarina Wiegman of England’s women’s national team.
Marcin Oleksy, Poland’s amputee footballer, won the Puskas Award (Best Goal) with his one-foot volley scored in a match between his team Warta Poznan and Stal Rzeszow on November 6, 2022.
The Fair Play Award winner was Luka Lochoshvili of Georgia. In February 2022, while playing for Wolfsberger AC against Austria in Vienna, Lochoshvili took out the tongue of Austrian player Georg Teigl who was unable to breathe after a collision and had swallowed his own tongue.
(IANS)
