What is the one individual award that Lionel Messi has to win and for which he has been nominated seven times?

To the surprise of many, Lionel Messi won The Best award, that FIFA offers and which on this occasion took into consideration what happened in the world of football from 19 December 2022 to 20 August 2023.

That means, It did not include the Qatar World Cup and it coincided with the Argentine star’s last semester at Paris Saint Germain and his first months at Inter Miami, which were not among the best of his career. And that period, in turn, is the one in which Erling Haaland converted 34 goals in 41 games and was Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup champion with Manchester City.

However, this award, which counts the votes of fans, as well as coaches and team captains, once again went to Messi, loved by football fans around the world.

Thus, he won it for the third time, after winning it in 2019 and 2022, and broke the tie with Cristiano Ronaldo (2016 and 2017) e Roberto Lewandowski (2020 and 2021), who achieved it twice.

Previously, between 1991 and 2009, FIFA had awarded the award “FIFA World Player”, that Messi won in its last edition, and France Football magazine gave the legendary Golden Ball, which has been awarded since 1956 and which Leo also won in 2009, when he was starting his explosion at FC Barcelona.

Then, when both awards merged between 2010 and 2015 into what they chose to call FIFA Ballon d’Or, He continued his supremacy: he won in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015 and finished second in 2013 and 2014, both behind Cristiano Ronaldo.

When the top football body and France Football parted ways again, he won three more Ballon d’Ors (2019, 2021 and 2023) and the nascent The Best (2019, 2022 and 2023).

Furthermore, he is the first winner (6) of the Golden Shoewhich since the 1967-68 season has been awarded to the top scorer of each season in the European leagues, with a weighted scoring system that gives priority to results achieved in England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France.

He was also cast as MVP (Most Valuable Player, for its acronym in English) of the 2014 and 2022 World Cups and the 2005 Under 20 World Cup, won by the Argentine national team led by José Pekerman and guided by Messi himself, his great figure.

Among other honors, he was elected UEFA Player of the Year In 2011 and 2015 he obtained four Golden Olympics (2011, 2021, 2022 and 2023) and stood out among the numbers of all sports with the Laureus in 2020 and 2023, awarded by the Laureus World Sports Academy and previously won by the likes of Rafael Nadal, Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher and Usain Bolt

He won everything on an individual level. Or rather, almost everything. There is an award that he has never managed to win and for which he has reached the final nomination three times: the Puskas.

This award, which FIFA established in honor of the legend of Ferenc Puskas to recognize the best goal of each season and which began to be awarded in 2008-2009, has not yet reached Messi’s hands, who knows something about it, it’s converting so many great invoices.

In the 2010-11 season, when he won Neymar for his phenomenal stack in the remembered 5-4 of Santos against Ronaldinho’s Flamengo, he finished third thanks to his masterful victory against Arsenal in the Champions League round of 16. After receiving a surgical pass from Andrés Iniesta, he delicately lifted the ball over Spanish goalkeeper Manuel Almunia and scored with a volley.

Then, in 2015, he returned to the shortlist and once again found himself behind a Brazilian footballer, but in this case he was Wendell Silva Lira, a striker who was then playing for Goianésia Esporte Clube and who was sent off with an impressive overhead kick from outside the area. He demoted the Ten, who with his Fantastic goal against Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey final came second in the voting.

And finally, He finished second again in 2019 with the goal against Real Betis, full of imagination, when he hit the goalkeeper in an extraordinary way and left a magnificent image when he was applauded by the rival fans present at the Benito Villamarín stadium. Likewise, it wasn’t enough: Daniele Zsoriof Debreceni Vasutas Sport Club, won with an overhead kick against Ferencvaros in the Hungarian championship.

Without reaching the shortlist of finalists, he also entered Puskas’ first team on four other occasions: in 2010 (a new goal, this time against Valencia), in 2012 (one of the best goals of his career, against Brazil in the remembered friendly played in New Jersey), in 2016 (for many, his best goal from a free kick: against the United States in the Copa América) and in 2018 (at the World Cup in Russia, against Nigeria, to save the Argentine national team from elimination in The first phase).