Official: Lionel Messi wins The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2023 ahead of Haaland

After rumors of Erling Haaland possibly winning this award, FIFA put those rumors to rest as they revealed Lionel Messi as the FIFA Men's Player of 2023. Lionel Messi has now won The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year more times than any other footballer in the award's history.

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Haaland was a heavy favorite for the award since the 2022 World Cup campaign was not part of the time period FIFA was judging on. Messi wins this award for the second year in a row. Messi, during 2023, has won the Ligue 1 with PSG and the Leagues Cup with Inter Miami. He was named in the Ligue 1 team of the season and was the top assister of the league.

Messi scored over 100 goals with the Argentina national team in 2023 and was the all-time top scorer in the top five European leagues. Some other facts FIFA praises Messi is he became the only player to register an assist in five World Cups. The players that come close to that record are Pele, Diego Maradona, Grzegorz Lato, and David Beckham.

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Messi overtook Cristiano Ronaldo with the most amount of The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year awards.

Messi now overtakes Cristiano Ronaldo with the most The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award by one. Ronaldo won two of these awards in 2017. Messi has three of these awards and completes the comeback for FIFA awards won.

The scoring points between Messi and Haaland were tied this year. Six hundred seventy-seven captains, 476 coaches, 315 media members, and 613,293 fans voted for the Argentine, who obtained 48 points. Haaland has 557 captains, 547 coaches, 729 media members, and 365,893 fan votes, with 48 points in total. Messi wins the award for having more five-point scores; he has 107 compared to Norweigan's 64. The five-point scores are from men's national team captains.