"Haaland deserves the award most," Real Madrid star who snubbed Messi and Mbappé

The Best awards ceremony will be held on January 15 in London. This event has been organized by FIFA since 2016 with the aim of competing with the Ballon d'Or awarded by France Football magazine. Since then, the prestige of this award has grown enormously. The big difference with its competitor is the way the winners are chosen: while the Ballon d'Or is voted by journalists, The Best is chosen by players, coaches, journalists and fans.

Last year the big winner was Lionel Messi. He had won the World Cup with Argentina just a few months earlier in Qatar 2022 and was therefore chosen once again as the best player on the planet. And now he has the chance to repeat that achievement, as he was chosen among the three finalists for the award to be presented next week. But it will not be an easy mission, as he will compete with two top-level stars: Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland.

The Argentine forward had an acceptable 2023, in which he was champion with Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1 and with Inter Miami in the Leagues Cup, in addition to excelling with the Argentine national team in the South American qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup. But 'Kiki' also shone with PSG and France, while Haaland was key to Manchester City winning the Treble last season.

In an interview with FIFA, Thibaut Courtois gave his opinion on this subject and surprised everyone by saying: "I think Haaland deserves the award most because he's won the Champions League, the English Premier League, the FA Cup, and scored a huge amount of goals". However, he also highlighted the performances of the other two players: "Mbappe and Messi are both fantastic players too, they have scored a lot of goals as well. We'll just have to see.

It would be a first for Erling

Neither Erling Haaland nor Kylian Mbappé have won The Best award. Since it began being awarded in 2016, Cristiano Ronaldo has won it twice, as have Robert Lewandowski and Lionel Messi, while Luka Modric was chosen once, in 2018.