According to goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, after an explosive season with Man City, Erling Haaland deserves to win FIFA The Best 2023 more than Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.
"Mbappe and Messi are both excellent players, but I think Haaland deserves The Best 2023, because he has won the Champions League, the Premier League, the FA Cup and scored a lot of goals," Courtois told UEFA's homepage on January 4. "Haaland deserves it the most, although the other two have also scored a lot of goals. Let's wait and see who the award will go to."
The Belgian goalkeeper also named Messi, Haaland, Mbappe and Cristiano Ronaldo as the best players he has faced. "There are so many levels you can choose from and I can't name them all. I was lucky enough to play against some of the greatest players in history, which is really special," Courtois added.
Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois flies to block Erling Haaland's header during the Man City - Real Madrid Champions League semi-final second leg match at Etihad Stadium, Manchester on May 17, 2023. Photo: AFP
Courtois is also in the top 3 nominees for the FIFA Best Goalkeeper of the Year award, alongside Ederson (Man City) and Yassine Bounou (Al Hilal). Courtois praised Bounou for his great season, winning the Europa League with Sevilla and making a great contribution to helping Morocco reach the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup. The Real Madrid goalkeeper also rated Ederson as a modern goalkeeper and played excellently with the historic treble with Man City. Courtois emphasized that both Bounou and Ederson deserved to win this year's award.
At the end of December, FIFA announced three candidates for The Best 2023 award: Messi, Mbappe and Haaland. Messi's name was controversial because FIFA calculated the achievements for The Best from December 19, 2022 to August 20, 2023, meaning the Argentine superstar's journey to win the 2022 World Cup was not counted.
During this time, Messi played 37 matches, scored 26 goals and assisted 12 times for PSG, Argentina and Inter Miami. Similarly, Mbappe was also considered unworthy of the Top 3, when he scored 17 goals in 20 Ligue 1 matches and was lackluster when PSG was eliminated from the Champions League round of 16 in the performance period.
Haaland is the strongest candidate with 36 goals in 44 matches, contributing greatly to Man City's historic treble of the Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and then continuing to win the European Super Cup. The Norwegian striker also destroyed a series of records and won many individual titles, including the Best Player, the Best Young Player of the Premier League 2022-2023 awarded by the tournament organizers and the European Golden Shoe, the title belonging to the player who scored the most goals in the national championships.
In addition to the best player and best goalkeeper awards, FIFA also announced the top 3 best coaches, including Pep Guardiola (Man City), Simone Inzaghi (Inter) and Luciano Spalletti (Napoli and the Italian national team). Last year's winner was coach Lionel Scaloni (Argentina).
In the category of Best Women's Football Coach of 2023, the three coaches in the Top 3 nominations are Jonatan Giraldez (Barca), Emma Hayes (Chelsea) and Sarina Wiegman (England National Team). The three nominated female players are Aitana Bonmati (Barca), Linda Caicedo (Real) and Jennifer Hermoso (Tigres UANL).
The Best was first awarded in 2016, after being split from the FIFA Ballon d'Or. Since then, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi and Robert Lewandowski have all won the award twice, while Luka Modric has been honoured once. Messi last won the award in 2022, largely thanks to his World Cup triumph.
The Best voting panel this time consists of four groups, including coaches, captains of national teams, journalists from member federations and online readers. These four groups will have an equivalent weight of 25%, of which the top three groups will have their voting results made public after the awards ceremony. The Best 2023 awards ceremony will take place in London on the evening of January 15.
Hong Duy
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