4 decisions in the FIFA awards 2018 that didn’t make any sense

The Best FIFA Football awards 2018 gala ceremony took place in London last night and a lot of top performers were awarded for their performances in the sport over the last one year.

Let us take a look at the award winners from yesterday's event.

FIFA Men's Player of the Year: Luka Modric

FIFA Women's Player of the Year: Marta

Best men’s coach: Didier Deschamps

Best Women’s coach: Reynald Pedros

Best Goalkeeper award: Thibaut Courtois

Best Goal ‘Puskas’ award: Mohamed Salah

FIFA FIFPro World XI: David de Gea, Dani Alves, Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane, Marcelo, N'Golo Kante, Luka Modric, Eden Hazard, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Not everyone who won awards was deserving. Let us take a look at four decisions that didn't make any sense in the Best FIFA Football award 2018.

Mohamed Salah winning the Puskas award

Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah was among the top three of the FIFA Player of the Year nominees along with Cristiano Ronaldo and the eventual winner Luka Modric. The Egyptian deserved a place in the top three but what he did not deserve is the Puskas award for the best goal of the season.

His goal against Everton at Anfield was awarded the Goal of the Year ahead of some the bicycle kicks scored by Cristiano Ronaldo against Juventus and Gareth Bale against Liverpool and the favourite to win the award, Riley McGree’s scorpion kick for Newcastle Jets in the Australian League.

In fact, the goal for which Salah won the award was not even his best goal as he scored better ones against Tottenham Hotspur in the league and against AS Roma in the UEFA Champions League.
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David de Gea in the FIFA FIFPro World XI ahead of Thibaut Courtois

When the nominees for FIFA Goalkeeper of the Year was announced, there was a lot of backlash from the fans as the sport's governing body named the eventual winner, Belgium's Thibaut Courtois along with French captain Hugo Lloris and Denmark's Kasper Schmeichel ahead of the likes of David de Gea, Jan Oblak, Marc Andre ter Stegan etc.

Courtois winning the award was completely deserving and there is no question over that but in spite of winning the Goalkeeper of the Year award, the Belgian international was ignored from the FIFA FIFPro World XI as Spanish gloveman De Gea was named in ahead of the Real Madrid goalie. What is the point of awarding a player the Goalkeeper of the Year award if he is not named in the World XI?
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No Mohamed Salah in the FIFA FIFPro World XI

Liverpool's Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah had a fantastic season with the Reds as he helped them finish in the top four in the Premier League and qualify for the UEFA Champions League final. Adding to this, he also ensured that Egypt qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He was deservingly named in the top three nominees for the FIFA Player of the Year award alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric leaving out players like Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann etc.

As expected, Salah lost the award to Croatia's Luka Modric as the midfielder has been invincible for both his club and country over the last 18 months. There is nothing surprising about the Real Madrid man winning it ahead of Salah. What's more surprising is that Salah, in spite of being named in the top three, did not find a place in the FIFA FIFPPro World XI while it has the likes of Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Eden Hazard, none of whom were in the top three for the Player of the Year award.
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Dani Alves being named in the FIFA FIFPro World XI

This is the biggest blunder of the day from the sport's governing body, FIFA. In the FIFA FIFPro World XI, there were a couple of debatable picks and nothing can be more debatable than the decision to name Dani Alves as the right-back in the Team of the Year.

There is no doubt about Alves being one of the best right-backs in the modern era but the Brazilian didn't deserve a place in the side this year. Even he himself would have been surprised to see his name featuring in the XI as he was injured for a majority of the year and has hardly played for both his country and club.

In 2018, he has played just 16 games for PSG and two for Brazil before he injured himself ahead of the FIFA World Cup and is yet to make a return. Adding to this, there are a lot of deserving candidates in the form of Joshua Kimmich, Dani Carvajal, Kyle Walker etc. who were overlooked by FIFA for the position.

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