Luka Modric will hope to beat Cristiano Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah and add the Best FIFA Men’s Player award to his UEFA accolade on Monday.
Real Madrid midfielder Modric won the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award after following up Champions League success by inspiring Croatia’s run to the World Cup final, picking up the Golden Ball despite defeat to France in Moscow.
He will be out to dethrone Ronaldo, who has endured a mixed start to life as a Juventus player following his €112million move from Madrid, where he scored 44 goals in all competitions last season and won the Champions League for the fifth time in his career.
Salah secured the Premier League Golden Boot in his first season at Liverpool and also accumulated 44 goals in all competitions as the Reds finished as runners-up in Europe’s premier club competition.
The trio made the final shortlist ahead of Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi, despite the 31-year-old winning LaLiga and the Copa del Rey in 2017-18 and finding the net 45 times in all competitions.
However, although Messi’s goal for Argentina against Nigeria at the World Cup is in contention for the FIFA Puskas Award and he could feature in the FIFPro World 11, he, like Ronaldo, is not expected to attend the ceremony.
Messi’s strike faces competition from Gareth Bale’s overhead kick in the Champions League final, while Ronaldo’s acrobatic effort against Juve in the quarter-finals and Salah’s goal in Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Everton in December 2017 are also among the 10 candidates.
The event in London will also see the Best FIFA Women’s Player named, with Norway’s Ada Hegerberg, Germany’s Dzsenifer Marozsan and Brazil’s Marta in contention to claim the prize won by Lieke Martens in 2017.
France boss Didier Deschamps, Croatia’s Zlatko Dalic and former Madrid trainer Zinedine Zidane are up for the title of the Best FIFA Men’s Coach, while the finalists for the Best FIFA Goalkeeper are Thibaut Courtois, Hugo Lloris and Kasper Schmeichel.
