Without Spanish footballers for a male award with favoritism for Leo Messi and Karim Benzema
MADRID, 12 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish midfielders Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí are among the nominees for FIFA’s ‘The Best’ award for the ‘Best Player’ of 2022, while no national player appears in the men’s category, the organization announced on Thursday. .
The double winner of the ‘Ballon d’Or’ and of this award last year, and her FC Barcelona teammate are among the 14 selected for the award along with Debinha (North Carolina Courage), Jessie Fleming (Chelsea), Ada Hegerberg and Wendie Renard (Olympique), Sam Kerr (Chelsea), Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema and Leah Williamson (Arsenal), Alex Morgan (Orlando Pride/San Diego Wave), Lena Oberdorf and Alexandra Popp (Wolfsburg) and Keira Walsh (Manchester City/FC Barcelona).
In addition to the two Catalan soccer players, goalkeeper from Alicante Sandra Paños (FC Barcelona) is also nominated for an individual award, that of ‘Best Goalkeeper’, who will have as rivals Ann-Katrin Berger (Chelsea), Mary Earps (Manchester United ), Christiane Endler (Olympique), Merle Frohms (Eintracht/Wolfsburgo) and Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars), while Salma Paralluelo has slipped in to qualify for the ‘Best Goal’ thanks to her great goal as a Villarreal player against Barça .
On the other hand, with regard to the men’s award, there is no Spanish footballer in a list of 14 where the favorites to relieve the Polish Robert Lewandowski are the Argentine Leo Messi, world champion with Argentina, and the French Karim Benzema, winner of the ‘Ballon d’Or’ and who won the Champions League with Real Madrid.
The Frenchman is not the only Real Madrid player nominated in this category, as there are also the Croatian Luka Modric and the Brazilian Vinicius Jr. Kylian Mbappé and Neymar (PSG), Julián Álvarez (River Plate/Manchester City), Jude Bellingham (Dortmund), Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City), Erling Haaland (Dortmund/Manchester City), Achraf Hakimi (PSG), Robert Lewandowski (Bayern/FC Barcelona), Sadio Mané (Liverpool/Bayern) and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) complete the list.
As for the coaches, the Spanish Pep Guardiola (Manchester City) will compete with the Italian Carlo Ancelotti (Real Madrid), the Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni, the French coach Didier Deschamps and the Moroccan coach Walid Regragui.
Sonia Bompastor (Olympique), Emma Hayes (Chelsea), Bev Priestman (Canada), Pia Sundhage (Brazil), Martina Voss-Tecklenburg (Germany) and Sarina Wiegman (England) are the nominees for the award in the women’s category.
Finally, for ‘The Best’ for ‘Best Goalkeeper’, the candidates are the Belgian Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid), the Brazilians Alisson Becker (Liverpool) and Ederson (Manchester City), the Moroccan Yassine Bono (Sevilla) and the Argentine Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa).
Now, as indicated by FIFA, to choose the winners of the individual awards, the votes of the national selectors, the captains of the national teams, and a specialized journalist from each territory represented by a national team will be taken into account. and by fans from all over the world registered on ‘FIFA.com’. The three finalists in each of the seven categories will be announced in early February.