Lionel Messi FIFA Best: PSG star's dominance over other nominees highlighted in graphic | OneFootball

Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski and Mohamed Salah are the final three players in the running for the prestigious The Best FIFA Men's Player 2021 award.

The trio are the last men standing from the original 11-man list that included Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe, Karim Benzema, Neymar, Kevin De Bruyne, N'Golo Kante and Jorginho.

Whoever emerges victorious out of Messi, Lewandowski and Salah at The Best FIFA Football Awards 2021 on January 17th will be a deserving winner.

All three have lit up the professional game in recent times, with Messi winning a record seventh Ballon d'Or back in November.

The Paris Saint-Germain superstar will be the big favourite to scoop the The Best FIFA Men's Player 2021 accolade as well, despite his struggles since leaving Barcelona for the French capital.

Messi's pursuit of the award is aided by the fact that the voting for the gong is based on a specific period from 8th October 2020 to 7th August 2021.

The time period the FIFA Best voting is based on

That will almost certainly play into the Argentine's hands and give him an advantage over the winner of last year's award, Lewandowski.

When you look at Messi's stats over that time period for club and country compared to the Bayern Munich star's and the other attack-minded players from the original nominees list, it's hard to see how the PSG man doesn't emerge victorious on January 17th.

The 34-year-old leads the way in pretty much every key department apart from goals scored, which is unsurprisingly where Lewandowski is the dominant force with a superhuman-like total.

@LSComps here...

Messi's stats vs FIFA Best nominees

Oh, we forgot to mention that Messi doesn't finish first in terms of big chances missed, that's headed up by Haaland. But who wants that honour, eh?

When it comes to the good stuff, the man in who guided his country to Copa America glory in the summer of 2021 takes the gold medal in 11 of the 12 columns, which is quite simply astonishing.

We may never see a footballing genius quite like Lionel Andres Messi ever again.

Lionel Messi: Can you get 20/20 on this quiz about his Barcelona career?

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