Cristiano Ronaldo Likely To Be FIFA's World Best Player
Cristiano Ronaldo again. It seems that his success story opens the year of 2017 as he is the biggest favorite to be FIFA's World Best Player in the upcoming ceremony this Monday in Zurich.
Last year, Ronaldo beat Messi to claim the Ballon d" Or award for the fourth time. The Portuguese gained a series of success with club Real Madrid and the Portugal national team. The world football governing body FIFA terminated its cooperation with French Football magazine for the Ballon d" Or award last year. They collaborated for six years.
Besides Ronaldo, Lionel Messi (Argentina-Barcelona) and Antoine Griezmann (France-Atletico Madrid) were also nominated for the men's category.
In a star-studded ceremony, US actress Eva Longoria will host the event, accompanied by German host Marco Schreyl, as Firstpost reported.
Meanwhile, for the best coach category, Real Madrid's Zinedine Zidane will compete with Claudio Ranieri, who surprisingly brought Leicester City to win the Premier League in the 2015-2016 season, and Fernando Santos, who successfully lead Portugal to win its first international trophy at the 2016 EURO in France.
Zidane was given a tremendous job to coach one of the world's best clubs after the sacking of Rafael Benitez, who is currently coaching Newcastle United. Zidane led El Real to dominate the European championship by winning the European Champions League in the 2015-2016 season. The success was followed by the European Super Cup and World Cup Club in Japan last year.
However, the French legend modestly said that he didn't expect to win.
Voting is carried out by national team captains and coaches and selected journalists. The good news is that the voting also involves an online poll of soccer fans for the first times, according to BBC report.
Each category contributes to 25% of the points.
As fans are the twelfth players, FIFA also gives the award for the best fans (besides the best player, coach, and goal). Liverpool and Dortmund fans singing"You'll Never Walk Alone" before the start of the Europa League game at Anfield were included in the nomination list.
Dortmund's former coach Jurgen Klopp is now a coach of Liverpool. Fans were showing a respect for the German coach, no matter where he is coaching now.
The sympathetic act shown by supporters of Dutch club ADO Den Haag who brought toys for kid supporters of Eredivisie rival Feyenoord and Iceland supporters clapping to pay respect to players at the 2016 EURO were also put in a nomination list
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