After winning Ballon d'Or, Lionel Messi was also clear favorite to pick up the FIFA award and much like Ballon d'Or, the Argentina also pipped his rivals by an enormous margin. Voted by the men's and women's international team captains and managers, Messi picked up 1073 votes, with 2nd place Cristiano Ronaldo far behind with 352 votes. Messi's Barcelona teammates Xavi and Andres Iniesta finished 3rd with 196 votes and 5th with 134 votes respectively. Kaka was between them at 4th with 190 votes.
It's been a magical year for Messi and Barcelona. Winning every possible trophy there is, with Messi's goal sealing the latest, FIFA World Club World Cup, and playing superb attacking football under manager Josep Guardiola. If only Messi could carry his club form on to his displays for Argentina, which so far have been very poor under manager Diego Maradona. He's no doubt currently the best player on the planet, but he can't do it all on his own, but that's the way Maradona's tactics seem to have been built. Argentina will take on Catalonia's team tomorrow in a friendly. While Messi won't be involved, it will be interesting to see, if there is a change of play, even though Maradona himself is still banned from any action by FIFA.
Back to the FIFA awards ceremony. Puskas award, named in the honour of legendary Hungary striker Ferenc Puskas, was announced for the first time ever and it was awarded to the best goal scored during the year. It was voted by fans and Cristiano Ronaldo's 40-yard screamer versus Porto was the winner.
The best XI, FIFPro team of the year was also named. Iker Casillas (Real Madrid); Dani Alves (Barcelona), Patrice Evra (Manchester United), John Terry (Chelsea), Nemanja Vidic (Manchester United); Xavi (Barcelona), Andres Iniesta (Barcelona), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool); Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Fernando Torres (Liverpool) made up the dream team of this year in football.
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