Lionel Messi and Alexia Putellas are the winners of this year’s GOAL50. Messi, who last won his first big title in the men’s national jersey at the Copa America with Argentina, drew level with Cristiano Ronaldo and has now also won the GOAL50 five times.
In the end, it was only 24 votes that made the difference – a remarkably small lead for the Argentine.
This year, the ranking was determined by a series of direct duels, in which fans around the world could vote for their favorite player of the year 2021.
More than 14 million votes were cast in this way for the men – and the duel between Messi and Ronaldo remained extremely exciting until the end.
Ronaldo, the best international goalscorer in history, went into the final day of voting with a lead. But when the final balance was drawn up on Tuesday at 3 p.m., Messi was ahead of the game with 50.1 percent in a direct duel with CR7.
Messi’s narrow triumph in a duel with third-placed Robert Lewandowski (53.3 percent to 46.7 percent) was very important on the way to overall victory.
Behind the trio, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah finished fourth, with Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe fifth.
The full results for men can be found here.