WILL LEWANDOWSKI’S BRILLIANCE END THE ERA OF RONALDO-MESSI DOMINANCE?

NEW DELHI:You don’t have a year like Lewandowski did and go unrewarded. The Polish striker has scored 60 goals since July 2019, spearheaded a Bayern Munich that won the big treble, and now he has beaten the golden duo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to win the Fifa men’s player of the year award. Only he and Luka Modric have managed to beat these 2 legends to the award since 2016.

The cancellation of the Ballon D’or which is the most prestigious individual award in football due to the Coronavirus pandemic was the biggest disappointment for Lewandowski and his fans as he was most certain to win it this year.

As soon as it was cancelled, articles like ‘What does France Football have against Lewandowski?’ were posted by Bayern Munich websites and even Lewandowski expressed his disappointment at the decision.

But the Fifa Men’s best player award means that the 32-year-old will still bag some global individual glory for his incredible season. This also means that Lewandowski becomes the 1st Bundesliga professional to be named Fifa World Footballer of the year a day after become the third player to hit the 250 goal mark in the German league.

While there wasn’t much doubt about who should have won the best player’s award, there was some debate on the Fifa Manager of the year award. Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp won it for the second consecutive time after the Premier League but many felt that the award should have gone to Bayern Munich and their manager Hansi Flick who took the German side to Bundesliga and Champions League glory. Klopp himself claimed that Flick deserved it more than him. ‘I deserve it more than Hansi Flick? No. What I can say I was not involved in the vote! I won the FIFA award last year pretty sure cause of the Champions League’, he said as he gave his award-winning speech.

But it were players from these two teams who dominated the Fifa Men’s team of the year, with Liverpool being represented by Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Van Dijk, and Thiago representing Liverpool and Davies, Kimmich and Lewandowski representing the German side. Messi, Ronaldo, and Ramos were the other usual three inclusions.