After losing the Ballon D’Or to Lionel Messi in November, Robert Lewandowski got his revenge as he won The Best FIFA Award, beating the Argentinian and Mohamed Salah. It’s the second time the Bayern Munich star gets the prize, meaning that he equalled Cristiano Ronaldo’s record.
Lewandowski had an incredible campaign in which he scored a Bundesliga record of 41 goals, and he won the Bundesliga and the Supercup title. However, while his season was impressive, it seems like Lionel Messi didn’t think so, as he let him out of his votes.
All the captains of national teams vote for three players, whom they considered deserve the award. The first choice receives five points, the second gets three and the third gets one point. Messi’s decision is a little surprising as he recently praised Lewandowski during his Ballon D’Or winner speech. So, who did Messi vote for?
The Best Awards 2022: Messi snubs Lewandowski, Cristiano let Messi out
Despite his words at the Ballon D’Or ceremony, Messi didn’t think Robert Lewandowski was in the top 3 of the best players during 2021. The Argentinian captain decided to give his votes to his PSG teammates Neymar and Kylian Mbappe in first and second place respectively, and to Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema in third place.
However, Lewandowski, as captain of Poland, did vote for Lionel Messi in second place. He gave five points to Jorginho, and chose Cristiano Ronaldo in third place. Meanwhile, the Portuguese chose Lewandowski as his first option, with Jorginho and N’Golo Kante in second and third place respectively. Meanwhile, Salah voted for Jorginho, Messi and Lewandowski in that order.
At the end, Lewandowski beat Messi by only four points. The Bayern Munich forward received 48 points, while the Argentinian got 44. Salah received 39, with Karim Benzema ending in fourth place with 30 points. The votes from captains and national coaches represented 25% of the final poll.
