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While the debate to settle who is the best ever football player in the world is a never-ending one, fans of the virtual contenders for the GOAT in the game often bring statistics to the table. This includes the number of individual awards that their favourite player has won.
While one knows that numbers aren't everything in the game and the greatest footballers produce moments of beauty that transcend all tangible achievements, prestigious individual awards of this team game continue to be fiercely contested and bring glory and bragging rights to their winners.
5 most prestigious awards in football
There are even awards that aim to measure aesthetics in football (more on that later). Nevertheless, adding an individual award to one's CV can change one's career, something that has assumed greater significance in the 21st century. In this article, we are going to take a look at the five most prestigious individual awards in football.
#5 The FIFA Puskas Award
We include the FIFA Puskas award because of its democratic nature and its unique worship of beauty.
Instituted in 2009 by FIFA, the award honours the most beautiful (yes, subjective) goal of the year. It can technically go to a male or a female player and can also head to a relative unknown, though Lionel Messi has expectedly got the most nominations during the award's short history - seven times to be precise.
Named in the honour of the great Hungarian forward Ferenc Puskas, the Puskas award has not been without controversy due to its subjective nature, most (in) famously when Mohamed Salah won it with a curler in 2018.
The Award is bestowed upon the player whose goal was chosen by the panel of FIFA Legends from the three-goal shortlist that received the highest number of votes from fans registered on FIFA.com during the voting process (from fifa.com)
Nevertheless, we still believe that it is an important celebration of beauty in football that needs to be preserved.
#4 The European Golden Shoe
Originally given by the L'Équipe magazine, the European Golden Shoe award is given to the top-scorer across all European football leagues (top division.) From 1968 to 1991, no distinction was made between the leagues in Europe before a controversy regarding a Cypriot scorer emerged.
Following the same, L'Equipe suspended the Golden Shoe award for five years. Since the 96-97 season, European Sports Media took over the awarding of the prize using a co-efficient that gives more weightage to the top leagues.
Lionel Messi has won the 'revamped' award six times and is followed by his eternal rival Cristiano Ronaldo at four. In the last 25 years, only two players outside the top-five European football leagues - Henrik Larsson and Mario Jardel - have won it.
#3 The Golden Ball
The Golden Ball is another prestigious award that goes beyond numbers and aims to reward the best footballer in the FIFA World Cup.
The best footballer may not be a part of the champion side and may not even have the best stats in the tournament (goals, saves, assists) but must have left their indelible mark on the quadrennial showpiece with their performances.
In fact, the last Golden Ball-winner from the winning team at the World Cup was Brazilian striker Romario in the 1994 edition of the tournament. Both Lionel Messi and Luka Modric, the last two winners of the award, were beaten finalists.
One factor that adds to the prestige of winning the Golden Ball is the fact that a top footballer gets very few chances during their careers to win it.
#2 FIFA World Player of the Year/Fifa The Best
From 1991 to 2009, FIFA presented the best men's football player in the world with the World Player of the Year award before it merged the award with the Ballon d'Or for six years.
Post this partnership, both the men's and women's awards were subsumed into the new Fifa Best Awards.
The original award was won by both Ronaldo Nazario (Brazil) and Zinedine Zidane (France) thrice. Cristiano Ronaldo has won the new iteration twice.
#1 The Ballon d'Or
Since 1956, France Football magazine has been giving out the Ballon d'Or award to the best footballer in the world every year.
The oldest and still the most prestigious award in the game, the Ballon d'Or was merged with the FIFA award for six years till 2009 but has since become an independent award.
First conceived by sports journalist Gabriel Hanot, the award initially only rewarded the best European player in a season. That changed in 1995 when players from any country active in European leagues became eligible.
It then became a global award in 2007. Football journalists were the original voters but in 2007, team captains and coaches were given voting rights.
Lionel Messi has won the coveted award six times followed by Ronaldo who has done so on five occasions. Luka Modric broke the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly during his annus mirabillis in 2018, the year in which he also won the Golden Ball.
The award was cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Honourable mention:
The UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award - Awarded to the best footballer of the best team in Europe in a season.
The current winner of this award is Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich). Virgil Van Dijk of Liverpool won it in 2018-19.
