The dominant era of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the soccer world appears to have finally reached its conclusion. FIFA recently revealed the nominees for The Best Men’s Player Award for 2025, and notably, neither the Argentine nor the Portuguese star are featured among the contenders.
According to the official FIFA report, the nominees for The Best 2025 are: Ousmane Dembele, Achraf Hakimi, Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe, Nuno Mendes, Cole Palmer, Pedri, Raphinha, Mohamed Salah, Vitinha and Lamine Yamal.
This development marks the fourth consecutive year in which Cristiano Ronaldo has not been included among the nominees for the award. For Messi, however, this represents the first time the Argentine superstar has been left off the list of contenders.
The last time the Portuguese star was featured on the shortlist was in 2021, when he finished seventh in the voting. That year, Robert Lewandowski claimed the honor, with Messi placing second.
How many times has Lionel Messi won the award?
Lionel Messi has won three FIFA The Best awards, and he remains the player with the most nominations (9) since FIFA established the individual award for the world’s best footballer in 2016.
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The Argentine star secured the award in the 2019 edition, then won consecutively in the 2022 and 2023 editions. Additionally, in three editions (2016, 2017, and 2021), he was the second-most voted player, while he finished third in 2020 and sixth in his last nomination in 2024.
What about Cristiano Ronaldo?
In the case of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese star claimed the award twice, winning the inaugural editions in 2016 and 2017. He also finished in second place on two occasions (2018 and 2020) and third once (2019).
The last time CR7 was nominated for the main award was in the 2021 edition. He finished seventh in the voting, and he has not been part of the list of nominees since then. However, in 2024, he was nominated to participate in the FIFPRO World XI as one of the best forwards in the world but did not receive the final recognition.
