For the second year in a row, Poland's Robert Lewandowski won the "best" award presented by the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), which is awarded to the best player in the world in 2021.
And it was announced that Lewandowski, who beat Argentine stars Lionel Messi and Egyptian Mohamed Salah, won the award today, Monday, during the FIFA ceremony, which was held as a virtual event at FIFA headquarters in the Swiss city of Zurich without the presence of the contenders for the various awards or guests due to the crisis of the outbreak of the new “Corona” virus. .
Lewandowski joined very few award-winning players in two consecutive years.
Lewandowski won the award in 2020 after his brilliant career with Bayern Munich and his contribution, with his abundant goals, to the team winning all possible titles in the 2019-2020 season, especially the German League and European Champions League titles.
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With this, Lewandowski broke a historical barrier, becoming the first player active in the German League to win the FIFA World Player of the Year award since the award was presented for the first time three decades ago, specifically since 1991.
Bayern may not have achieved in 2021 the same achievements that he achieved in 2020, but Lewandowski's numbers and statistics were enough to put him in the final struggle for the "best" award.
Last season, Bayern won the German League (Bundesliga) and the German Super Cup, while the European Champions League and German Cup were left empty-handed.
But the team was crowned at the beginning of this year with the title of the Club World Cup - hosted by Qatar - and Lewandowski scored two impressive goals in it, and won the title of best player in this edition of the Club World Cup.
This tournament was Bayern's sixth title in the 2019-2020 season, equaling the achievement of Barcelona in 2009.
Lewandowski continued his impressive mark with Bayern last season and etched his name in the records of the Bundesliga with golden letters when he broke the record of legend Gerd Muller, who has stood for half a century, in the number of goals scored by any player in one season in the history of the Bundesliga.
Lewandowski finished last season as the top scorer in the Bundesliga for the fourth consecutive season, scoring 41 goals in 29 matches in the championship over the season, compared to 40 goals scored by Muller in the 1971-1972 season, knowing that Muller scored this number in 34 games.
And Lewandowski's next goal is to break another historical record recorded in the name of Muller himself, which is the number of goals scored by any player throughout his career in the Bundesliga
. He is the top scorer in the tournament this season.
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In addition to his brilliance with Bayern, Lewandowski continued his brilliance with his country to win the title of Best Polish Sports Personality for the second year in a row and for the third time in his career so far.
During the Polish national team's march in the European qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup, Lewandowski participated in eight of the ten matches and missed only two matches that the team lost against England and Hungary, while the matches in which he participated witnessed six wins and two draws.
During these matches, Lewandowski scored eight goals and assisted four goals, thus participating in 12 of the 30 goals scored by the team in the qualifiers.
Through these results, the Polish team did not succeed in qualifying directly to the World Cup, and its fate will depend on the European play-off in the coming period.
In 2021, Lewandowski won many personal awards, especially the Golden Boot award for the best scorer in the major European domestic leagues.