By: Manuel Chimoy
Luka Modrić won the Best Men’s Player award for 2018, going against Mohamed Salah and Cristiano Ronaldo which ends the Ronaldo and Lionel Messi era.
On September 24, 2018, at the Best FIFA Football Awards, Modrić won the award with over 29% of the votes followed by Ronaldo with 19% and Salah with 11%. Ronaldo played in 44 games, has 44 goals and 8 assists compared to Salah 52 games, 44 goals and 16 assists.
Modrić won because he had an excellent run with Real Madrid, who won the UEFA Champions League 3 times in a row, becoming the first club to win three straight Champions League finals in history.
Modrić also had a good run in the world cup. Croatia won their group stage on top of Argentina, then Croatia was onto the knock out rounds against Denmark, Russia, England and all the way to the finals against France. Croatia lost to France with a score of 4-2, Croatia finished in second place, but Modric won the Best Player in the World Cup Award
“Luka Modrić I think could possibly have deserved it, but I feel like if Messi were on that top 3 nominations, he probably would have won it,” said Dan Lucas, a 20-year-old Psychology major.
“Modrić was wonderful this year, I think he truly deserved it. It’s not every day that you see that kind of player doing what he does in the midfield role,” said Federico Rodriguez, a 22-year-old criminal justice major.
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said this about Modrić, “There’s no question that Modric has been the best player this year, both for his club team, Real Madrid, as well as with the Croatian national team. Everyone clapped in recognition of his excellent season when his name was announced. For us, who placed our faith in him many years ago now, this is the reward for many years of fine football, hard work, quality, effort and I’ve only got words of satisfaction.”
Photo: By Светлана Бекетова (soccer.ru) [CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
