The Best FIFA Football Awards (2017)

My personal top 3: Harder, Nadim(I said personal) and Martens. Since Nadim isn't on the list, I'll just go with Harder and Martens.

FIFA probable Top 3: Lloyd, Castellanos and Kerr..

 

Sorry, I got lost with all of these awards: is this the same as the FIFA Player of the Year (Ballon d'Or for the men) that used to be awarded in the Gala at the beginning of the year? Or is it something different? Sorry, but I am confused about it.

 

Thanks. It's also interesting that the span of time that's covered is different. This could favour Europe-based players, since the shortlist is made at the end of their season, when the respective leagues are fully completed and all results, including UEFA WCL, have been achieved.

Also, tournaments that are closer to the voting window (in the case of this year, Euro 2017) could get more weight, compared to others in the last part of the year, that could have been faded away by the time the voting phase is underway. But maybe we're goint to get less of those?
For instance: I see one player and one coach from U-20 WWC 2016, but I guess they're penalized by the timing of this vote.

Anyway, given that this is the equivalent of the old FIFA PotY, I'd say that Martens should deserve it more than anyone this year, although I see her chances damaged by the fact that a strong NT team-mate is also shortlisted (Vivianne Miedema) and she could take away some votes from her, if the voters who support Netherlands' performance don't agree about their respective contributions. It reminds me a little of the situation that in some years had involved Homare Sawa and Aya Miyama for Nadeshiko Japan (this didn't prevent Sawa from winning in 2011, though).

The only other shortlisted players from the same country are Lucy Bronze and Jodie Taylor, but this is different, both because they play two completely different roles (and DFs are historically "handicapped" in this kind of competitions) and because I don't see either of them making top three anyway.

Frankly I could have easily shortlisted Nadia Nadim over a pair of "weaker" names. But she isn't there: this gives some kind of an advantage to Pernille Harder, who won't have to share some of her votes with Nadim the same way Martens could lose points to Miedema. But I can see Lieke making it anyway, so I am going to cast my vote on her.

You could make an argument for Kerr, but in my opinion she will suffer from the fact that she didn't win anything meaningful this year either with NT (Tournament of Nations is just a set of glorified friendlies; Algarve is too, and there Australia was 4th, defeated by both Sweden and Harder's Denmark) or with club (NWSL is still underway and Sky Blue is currently even out of play-off's picture, although a win in the next game could put them back in).

I can't really see any of the others having a shot at first place: Maroszan was too bad at Euro 2017 and not enough influential in OL's wins. Lloyd could be favoured by pro-USA endorsers, since she's the only US player in this shortlist; but this season she did basically nothing noteworthy, except collecting Red Cards both in England and on home soil: I guess disciplinary sheet should be part of the equation, when you're choosing the best player in the world.

 

For Best Women's Coach, of course credit has to be given to Sarina Wiegan for the impressive achievement of her team, but actually I wouldn't mind seeing Nils Nielsen at first place.

Also, there is a coach who doesn't seem to love the spotlight at all and has a no-nonsense approach that looks like the opposite of some colleagues (Mark Sampson or John Herdman come to mind ), but who anyway made quite a miracle with the group of players he had available: Dominik Thalhammer!

 

Lmao how's even Lloyd on this list lol lol lol, she's barely top 30 for me this year. Sadly, Maro didn't perform at her best in the Euro's.

 

at least it's someone outside of Europe. Just noticing, Europeans make up 8 out 10 of the players on the list, yet only got four NT's in FIFA's current top 10. How's that fair?

 

Oh, supporters are allowed to vote this year? That's new and I wonder if it isn't going to turn this even more into a "popularity contest" instead of an award to the actual best footballer in the world.

Now I can see Lloyd winning again, because there are so many more US fans caring for women's football than the rest of the world combined, probably. And Kerr is going to be second.

Thank God Marta isn't shortlisted this time.

 

Ridiculous, I haven't seen Lloyd perform consistently good for years. She wasn't the best in 2015. Not in 2016. NOT in 2017. This sucks

 

I know, but did you see that "Fan voting is weighted exactly the same as the voting being done by national team coaches, national team captains and selected members of the media"? In your opinion, the majority of fans are well informed people like you and me who are going to vote based on the actual performance of the players in this season? In your opinion, how likely is it that US voters aren't the majority of fan voters? And how likelt is it that the majority of voters actually followed Euro 2017?

Lot of questions, I know, but it makes you think...

 

LMAO.

Your three candidates for #TheBest FIFA Women’s Player 2017:#DeynaCastellanos#CarliLloyd#LiekeMartens

Who will be crowned #TheBest? pic.twitter.com/weJH9DCfB5

— FIFA Women's World Cup (@FIFAWWC) September 22, 2017

 

Carli Lloyd are you ********ing kidding me

 

I definitely think Lloyd is still in consideration just because of "spillover" from previous year, like Marta had been for so long. To be fair to her, though, she is on the #1 NT in the world (and captain for much of the year), and she did rather well in her time with MCFC - she scored half of their UWCL goals in the games she played, and did win the FA Cup too so her 2017 trophy case definitely is not bare. Did she have a bigger spotlight on her because of previous achievements? Absolutely. But she certainly did more than many other players, too. I'm not sure I would have put her in the top 3, but the argument is there I think, and I would have definitely put her in the top 10.

 

Carli Lloyd is not even the best player on the USWNT. Heck, she isn't even the best player in the NWSL.

This is just laziness on whoever picks the candidates for this award on FIFA's side to actual learn about who is who in the women's game.

 

Guys, do you remember what I wrote a few posts above, as soon as I knew that fans were allowed to vote and that "Fan voting is weighted exactly the same as the voting being done by national team coaches, national team captains and selected members of the media"?

Well, I was a good prophet, but it wasn't so difficult to predict: I am sure that, when fans' voting will be disclosed, we're going to discover that it was won by Lloyd by a landslide, to to point of outweighting any potential reasonable vote by coaches, players and media.

 

The only awards worth attention are those in domestic leagues. At least you can compare players in the same environment.

FIFA awards...

 

Deyna

 

damn, you predicted this over a month ago!

at least Harder won the BS poll(though only 9 people voted, lol)

 

The biggest problem is the original 10 players shortlist. If they had a proper one, fans would not be able to vote to vote for their favourite if she had not performed...
Saying that as fans vote count for 25% of the total it means a lot of coach/players/journo have also voted for her and they should know what they are doing ... in theory.

 

Yes, but how many fans caring to vote you have outside of USA?

If the fans' vote counts for 25%, but 90% of them voted for a particular player, this can vastly outweight even the more biased of the coach/players/media votes (that usually doesn't skew anyway towards 90% or such).

 

I would bet fans coming from a UEFA or AFC perspective are close enough in number to those coming from the US perspective....

 

Not sure... I'd say women's football is less followed here in Europe than in USA...

 

lol. . I voted for Carli in the BS poll just to be a dork; I thought my vote would be viewable.

I'm praying that Martens pulls off the impossible but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's the thing with your logic: Woso fans are a hardcore bunch. We tend to know who's worthy of accolades and who isn't. Based on what I saw on social media yesterday, fans from Trump's country(where I live) were extremely upset that Carli was in the top 3. Heck, if we are going by fan popularity, Kerr would win by landslide. I pin the blame on the committee for these shenanigans. There were several players in the initial 10 that had no business being on that list. I honestly won't be surprised if the media and coaches votes tilt toward Carli...