The Best FIFA Men's Player is a football award delivered annually by the governing entity, FIFA, to the world's best men's player (started in 2016). The award was formerly known as the FIFA World Player of the Year, which was merged with France Football's Ballon d'Or in 2010 to become the FIFA Ballon d'Or in a six-year long partnership. The six editions of the FIFA Ballon d'Or were dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, as part of their ongoing rivalry. In 2016, the Ballon d’Or again lost its ‘FIFA’ tag and would be voted for exclusively by journalists, while the FIFA World Player of the Year award — which ran from 1991 to 2009 — was resurrected, this time as The Best FIFA Men's Player.
The favorite for the award was undoubtedly the Polish Robert Lewandowski, undefeated champion and top scorer in the Champions League for Bayern Munich. Kylian Mbappé and Neymar, who had a huge season for PSG (French Champions and Champions League Finalist) were struggling to appear among the three. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who dominated the award for the last decade, strated to see their presence fall off in the face of the fierce competition presented this year. Some other candidates were Thiago Alcântara, Kevin de Bruyne, Sadio Mané, Sergio Ramos, Mohamed Salah, and Virgil Van Dijk who all had brilliant seasons themselves.
At the beginning of the analysis, let's start by presenting the relationship between the number of official matches played by these 11 players in 2020, and the victory % of these games. In this concern, the main highlights are Robert Lewandoski and Kylian Mbappé, both with more than 35 official matches and a winning % close to 80. Thiago Alcântara also ended up showing himself in this field, because despite having fewer games played in 2020 he has a winning % of almost 90%.
We consider the direct influence on the final result of the game, the goals and assists also called "goal contributions", so for further conclusions that's the criteria we found more fitting to describe their performances in this particular aspect.
- In terms of Goals, the fight in 2020 was between Rober Lewandoski and Cristiano Ronaldo - In terms of Assists, the most prominent Playmakers were undoubtedly Lionel Messi and Kevin de Bruyne, with Robert Lewandoski also appearing in this fight. - In a combination of the two variables mentioned above, Robert Lewandoski takes a clear advantage with an impressive 57 Goal Contributions, with the 2nd place it's Cristiano Ronaldo with 9 goals behind at the time of this study.
Moving now from a direct influence on the final result "goal contributions" to a more detailed analysis of the moments of the game, we decided to present some data related to Playmaking, Creating Actions - Shot & Goal and Defensive Actions.
- In the Playmaker analysis, we link the Progressive Distance of Passes (in meters) that the players completed in 2020 with their Pass Completion %. On the other side, we relate the Progressive Distance that the players carried the ball (in meters) to Dribbles Completed Successfully %. In these moments of the game, the highlight is undoubtedly for Lionel Messi, with indicators far superior to those of the competition (except defender), and the values of Kevin de Bruyne also stand out. Speaking of Center-Backs, we could not fail to mention the high percentage of successes Virgil vin Dijck and Sérgio Ramos.
- Speaking now of Creating Acitions - Shot & Goal, the highlight goes to Lionel Messi, with a huge distance to everyone else, the Argentine player despite his 33 years continues to show that he can create plays like no other. in a second row, Kevin de Bruyne again showed himself above all the other midfielders.
- On the defensive side of the game, we divided the analysis into 3 Defensive Actions (Tackles, Interceptions and Blocks), the Number of Pressure Moments made, and finally the player's record in terms of yellow and red cards.
Remembering that Football is a Collective Sport, which aims to win titles, we cannot forget the trophies won in 2020. In this matter, Robert Lewandoski stood out from all the others with his Bayern Munich, with the win of the UEFA Champions League and Bundesliga, 2 National Cups and the UEFA SuperCup. On an individual level, he still won the Bundesliga and Champions League top scorer award, Player of the Year in Germany, and also the UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award 2020.
As a curiosity, we analyzed the Market Value, the main Sponsorship and the Social Media of the players under analysis. The main links to be drawn are:
- Market value is directly related to the age and potential of the player, with the top 3 (Robert Lewandoski, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi) not including the most valuable players.;
- As for Sponsorship, the main highlight goes to Nike, with 7 players from the top 11;
- The most critical topic turns out to be Social Media, because, with clear domination by Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi in this area, FIFA can lose a lot of media coverage when removing these players from the first places;
As usual, we leave you with a few questions to reflect on in relation to this topic:
1. How's your Top 3?,
2. Who was the best Playmaker and the Best Center-Back of 2020?
3. Does Social Media impact THE BEST rating? because, with the evident domination of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi in this field, FIFA can lose a lot of media coverage when removing these players from the first places;
Soccer Analytics - Data Anlysis
Comments