The Best FIFA Awards: Did Vini Jr. deserve the honor over Jude Bellingham?

Editor’s note: On Tuesday, the winners of The Best FIFA Football Awards 2024 were announced following a tally of votes cast by fans, national team coaches, captains and media members representing each of FIFA’s 211 member nations.

And for the second straight year, global soccer’s governing body selected FOX Sports’ own Doug McIntyre as the United States‘ media voter for the three men’s categories: best player, best goalkeeper, and best coach.

Below are Doug’s picks — and his explanation for making each of those choices — along with the actual winners.

McIntyre’s pick: Jude Bellingham

Although Bellingham finished third in the voting, behind Vini Jr. and Rodri, I think that the evidence proves he was better than both during the period under consideration, which ran from Aug. 21, 2023 until Aug. 10 of this year.

In that timeframe, Bellingham emerged as Real Madrid’s engine, leading them to Spanish and Champions League titles, something Vini Jr. failed to do the year before. The 20-year-old Englishman was named La Liga’s top player at season’s end, and then dragged his national team to the final of Euro 2024 almost by himself.

Bellingham had more goal contributions than club teammate Vini across all competitions in 2023-24; in other words, Vini wasn’t even the best player on his own club. Vini also continued to struggle while on international duty with Brazil, both at the 2024 Copa América and during South American World Cup qualifying.

Ballon d’Or winner Rodri was a close second for me. But Manchester City’s elimination in the Champions League quarterfinals clearly hurt his chances. In the end, Bellingham’s body of work was simply too hard to overlook. I’m surprised more of my fellow voters didn’t feel the same.

McIntyre’s pick: Emiliano Martínez

He may not play for a brand-name club, with all due respect to Aston Villa. But Martínez has only gotten more impenetrable since backstopping Argentina’s World Cup triumph two winters ago, as his play for both Villa and the Albiceleste showed during the pertinent 11 ½th months. 

Last season, the keeper known to his admirers as “Dibu” helped lead his English team back to the Champions League for the first time in decades. He then decamped for the Copa América, where his penalty kick-stopping heroics were once again on display as Argentina joined Spain’s legendary 2008-12 squad by becoming just the second country to sandwich a World Cup win between two continental titles. No wonder the 32-year-old won this award in a landslide.

Man City’s Ederson finished a distant second to Martínez in the voting, but I felt that Unai Simón did more to earn that distinction after winning the Euros with Spain. I had David Raya ahead of Ederson, too, mainly because of how consistently stout he was when it mattered for Arsenal last season.

Best coach: Carlo Ancelotti

McIntyre’s pick: Xabi Alonso

It’s not fair that managing Real Madrid almost counts against Ancelotti. After wresting back both the Spanish (from Barcelona) and European (from City) titles last season, the Italian is a worthy pick for sure.

Still, I’m not sure how so many voters can overlook the near-miracle that Alonso performed for Bayer Leverkusen last season. Not only did the Spaniard establish himself as perhaps the brightest managerial prospect in the global game (and an obvious choice to eventually succeed Ancelotti at the club he once captained) by leading unfenced Leverkusen to its first-ever German Bundesliga crown, he did it without losing a single game. That was an astounding accomplishment in a league that had been dominated by Bayern Munich for more than a decade. That he also took Leverkusen all the way to the Europa League final was icing on the cake.

I had Ancelotti second. Pep Guardiola finished third and remains the sport’s preeminent coach. But for my money, Lionel Scaloni — my third pick, for what it’s worth — deserves a ton more credit than he gets for guiding Argentina to those three straight major tournament wins.

How did the USMNT’s Mauricio Pochettino and Tim Ream vote? 

The U.S. coach and captain’s top three choices in each category were also made public by FIFA on Tuesday. The pair voted as follows:

Pochettino

Best player: Lionel Messi, Rodri, Vini Jr.
Best keeper: Martínez, Simón, Ederson
Best coach: Scaloni, Luis de la Fuente, Ancelotti

Ream

Best player: Rodri, Vini Jr., Bellingham
Best keeper: Gianluigi Donnarumma, Mike Maignan, Martínez
Best coach: Xabi Alonso, Guardiola, Ancelotti

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports. A staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.

[Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.]

---

---