Cristiano Ronaldo on Tuesday won his fifth Best FIFA Men’s Player award in London and the 32-year-old’s gracious message post the star-studded ceremony on Twitter saw him win universal acclaim.
Ronaldo, after firing Real Madrid to a UEFA Champions League and La Liga crown in the 2016-17 season, was heavy favourite to clinch his fifth gong and garnered over 40 per cent of the votes.
Arch-rival and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, who coincidentally has five FIFA Best Men’s Player awards as well, came in second place while PSG winger Neymar completed the podium.
It was Ronaldo’s second win on the trot and after two glittering seasons for club and country, the Portuguese forward was the rightful recipient as is evident by the margin of his victory.
In the past two seasons, Ronaldo has won the 2016 European Championships with Portugal, the UEFA Champions League twice, the La Liga, the UEFA Super Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup and the Spanish Super Cup.
The Real Madrid No.7 has lost some of the pace that enabled him to terrorise defenders on the wing but after successfully reinventing himself as a centre-forward, has continued to score goals at a prodigious rate.
In the 2015-16 season, Ronaldo scored 51 goals across all competitions and while last season saw a minor ‘dip’ in his tally, a return of 42 goals from 46 matches is still remarkable.
Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane, who won the best coach of the year award, played Ronaldo sparingly at the start of the season and started to rest the iconic forward from time to time.
The rotation policy raised a few eyebrows as it was an unprecedented move but the results spoke for themselves as Ronaldo was on fire in the latter stages of the season and produced quite a few clutch performances as Los Blancos dominated Spain and Europe enroute to a Double.
