The world’s best footballer of 2023 has been named: it’s not Ronaldo or Messi

In sec­ond place, as in 2022, was Mbappe.

The Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Foot­ball His­to­ry and Sta­tis­tics (IFFHS) has named the best foot­ball play­er in the world in 2023. It was Man­ches­ter City and Nor­way nation­al team strik­er Erling Haa­land. The rat­ing appeared on the offi­cial web­site of the orga­ni­za­tion.

The best football player in the world 2023

As a result of the vot­ing, Hol­land scored 208 points and took first place. PSG strik­er Kylian Mbappe was in sec­ond posi­tion with 105 points. And third place went to the Argen­tinean, Inter Mia­mi for­ward Lionel Mes­si, who earned 85 points.

The top five in the rank­ing also includ­ed Man­ches­ter City mid­field­er Rodri and Real Madrid’s Jude Belling­ham. The ath­letes scored 55 and 34 points, respec­tive­ly.

Previous awards

This was the first award of this kind for a Nor­we­gian foot­baller. Let us remem­ber that in 2022, Lionel Mes­si became the best foot­ball play­er in the world, and Mbappe was also in sec­ond place. In 2020 and 2021, Robert Lewandows­ki became the best foot­ball play­er, accord­ing to IFFHS.

In addi­tion, Mes­si pre­vi­ous­ly topped the list of the best foot­ball play­er of the 21st cen­tu­ry, accord­ing to the British mag­a­zine Four­FourT­wo. In sec­ond place is Cris­tiano Ronal­do, who now plays for the Sau­di Al-Nasr Cris­tiano Ronal­do.

Haaland’s other awards

Last sea­son, the ath­lete became Man­ches­ter City’s top scor­er: he was able to score 52 goals and pro­vide 9 assists in 53 in all com­pe­ti­tions.

The best female football player in the world

This title went to Spaniard Aitana Bon­mati, who plays for the Barcelona foot­ball club.

Erling Holland

Now the foot­ball play­er is 23 years old. In 2022, he moved to Man­ches­ter City from Borus­sia Dort­mund, a trans­fer that cost the club $62 mil­lion. The Trans­fer­markt por­tal cur­rent­ly val­ues ​​the play­er at €180 mil­lion.

He made his debut in the Nor­we­gian nation­al team back in 2019, and has already played 29 match­es for the nation­al team, scored 27 goals and pro­vid­ed three assists.