Leicester City's Claudio Ranieri received the best men's coach award on Monday following his side's fairytale Premier League triumph.

Ranieri, 65, who saw off Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane and Portugal manager Fernando Santos, said the best coach honour was "incredible" after receiving the prize from Argentine football legend Diego Maradona.

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Under Ranieri's leadership, Leicester pulled off one of the greatest shocks in English football history by defying title odds of 5,000-1 to lift the Premier League trophy last season. The eccentric manager famously said at a press conference last year that he used the catchphrase ‘dilly-ding, dilly-dong’ during training to lighten spirits.

Having miraculously avoided relegation the previous season, the Foxes rode that wave of momentum all the way to the title.

The prizes were based on a combined voting process involving national team coaches and captains, a select group of journalists and fans.

American midfielder Carli Lloyd scooped the best women's player of 2016, the two-time Olympic gold medallist adding to her 2015 FIFA Women's World Player of the Year accolade.

The American finished ahead of Brazilian star Marta and Germany's Melanie Behringer.
She described 2016 as "bittersweet", with the US failing to win a medal for the first time in women's Olympic football.

World football's governing body launched the new award series after ending its six-year collaboration with France Football magazine for the Ballon d'Or.

The change is one of many implemented under Infantino, who took over FIFA last year pledging to lead it away from the scandals that dominated the end of Sepp Blatter's tenure.

Speaking on the so-called "green carpet" outside the Zurich awards venue, Maradona said the prizes helped define a new FIFA identity.

"After everything that was taken away from football, everything that was tainted by corruption, to see new people, new faces, that provides me with hope," Maradona said.

But the first 11 months of Infantino's administration have had their troubles, including massive and often contentious FIFA staff overhauls and an ethics probe that ultimately cleared Infantino of abusing his office.

Infantino's biggest test to date is set for Tuesday when FIFA's powerful governing council will decide whether to back his controversial push to expand the World Cup to 48 teams from its current 32-nation format.