The Best FIFA Football Awards – Follow and watch free live stream as Lionel Messi bids to defend crown

It’s another huge award for Lionel Messi to add to his mammoth collection.

The Argentinean star wasn’t able to make the trip to London, so Thierry Henry decides he’s going to collect the trophy on Messi’s behalf, taking the opportunity to make a joke at his own expense and another at Spurs for never getting a trophy. Obviously, because why not.

It’s time for the FIFA Men’s award to be announced. A reminder that these are the three nominees:

• Erling Haaland
• Kylian Mbappe
• Lionel Messi

The winner of the FIFA Fan award is a Colón fan from Santa Fe, who went viral when bottle-feeding his son at a game.

He attempts to take his young child up with him onto the stage, but the bright lights and the shock of it all are a bit much for the youngster, who bursts into tears.

It’s a nice moment though, as the parental team join forces to look after the youngster and still make sure that a few words of gratitude are said to their club and the broadcasters who turned such a normal moment into a viral hit.

It’s time for the award for the goal of the year, and it’s fair to say that there are some bangers amongst the nominated efforts.

But the winning effort is by Brazilian Guilherme Madruga of Botafogo for this sublime overhead kick.

It’s fair to say from his reaction that he wasn’t expecting to be the winner of this award, and he speaks well after composing himself and taking to the stage.

“Today for me is a unique day. It will be a part of my history and my memory. I am thanking my family, mainly my parents who are in Brazil. Thank you to my brother, who is here. I love every moment I spend with you. I was not expecting this. Thank you.”

The Best awards takes a brief pause on the stage as a tribute is played out to three legends who passed away in the last year: Sir Bobby Charlton, Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer.

And three players then speak about those departed legends.

Louis Saha on the late Sir Bobby Charlton:

Ronaldo remembers Mário Zagallo:

Paul Breitner pays tribute to Franz Beckenbauer:

Brazil’s men’s national team are awarded the FIFA fair play award for wearing an all-black kit to show their support for teammate Vinicius Jr, after the Real Madrid forward had been targeted by racist abuse in La Liga.

It’s time for FIFA’s Fair Play award to be announced, with three nominees mentioned, including the Montevideo City Torque U16 team, who allowed their opponents to score unopposed after missing a clash of heads en-route to scoring their own goal.

Referee Pol Van Boekel was also nominated for not booking Mohammed Kudus after he removed his shirt after scoring for Ajax to display a tribute to Christian Atsu, who died in an earthquake in Turkey last year.

Manchester City’s treble-winning Brazilian goalkeeper takes to the stage as his family watch on with smiles on their faces.

Ederson was brilliant at the back for City all year, setting the tone with his brilliant playmaking on the ball and making a string of crucial saves.

“Thanks to my family. My wife and my children. They are very important to me. Thank you to the players. It was a great year.”

On to the next one. Here are the three finalists for the men’s keeper of the year.

The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper

• Yassine Bounou
• Thibaut Courtois
• Ederson

England and Manchester United goalkeeper Mary Earps is named goalkeeper of the year.

She’s picked up all sorts of individual awards after her World Cup efforts, and starts off by thanking her teammates and her coaches at England and United.

She says she’s blown away by the honour, and how she took the scenic route to this sort of success, but how it’s all worth it now.

And she finishes with a not massively disguised comment praising the Spanish national team and their efforts standing up against the federation following the World Cup.

“Thank you very very much. Last year, when I won this award I didn’t get in team of the year, so I thought I would be done for the night.

“Thank you to all my coaches at England and United. I am just blown away. I talk a lot obviously about how it hasn’t been an easy journey. Some would say I took the scenic route. But it made me feel so much prepared for the challenges ahead.

On to the next one. Here are the nominees for best goalkeeper in the women’s game, with some strong candidates.

The Best FIFA Women’s Goalkeeper

• Mackenzie Arnold
• Catalina Coll
• Mary Earps

The team is out for the best XI in the women’s game of the year:

Defence: Olga Carmona, Lucy Bronze, Alex Greenwood

Midfield: Keira Walsh, Alessia Russo, Lauren James, Ella Toone, Aitana Bonmati

Attack: Alex Morgan, Sam Kerr

Again it’s a little top-heavy but there’s quality all over the park.

England manager Sarina Wiegman wins the award for the best coach in the women’s game, beating Chelsea boss Emma Hayes and treble-winning Barcelona manager Jonatan Giraldez to the award.

This is Wiegman’s fourth time accepting this award, following victories in 2017, 2020 and 2022.

Here are the nominees for the latest award:

The Best FIFA Women’s Coach

• Jonatan Giraldez
• Emma Hayes
• Sarina Wiegman

Thierry Henry has Pep Guardiola in all sorts of trouble with a probing question about which of his treble-winning sides were better, to such an extent that the City boss – who is still on stage with Kyle Walker and Reuben Dias, two of six Man City players in the Fifpro XI – drops an f-bomb. That’s got the pulses racing at The Apollo!

“Barcelona is the club of my heart, they are the reason why I am here,” he answers. “But doing it with Man City, 15 or 20 years ago we were not here. We have built step by step since Roberto Mancini was here. Those years ago, we could not expect to be here.”

The Best XI in the men’s game has been announced and it’s a star-studded line-up.

Goalkeeper: Thibaut Courtois

Defence: John Stones, Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias

Midfield: Bernardo Silva, Jude Bellingham, Kevin De Bruyne

Forwards: Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Vinicius Jr

Slightly top-heavy perhaps, and when I say slightly I mean very – is that Mbappe and Vinicius potentially being asked to operate as wing-backs? But these are eleven brilliant footballers:

No hanging around, as Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola is named as the men’s coach of the year, having won the treble last season.

A dapper-looking Pep begins by crediting both Simone Inzaghi and Luciano Spalletti, the other finalists nominated for the award. He then offers praise to the Manchester City bosses, his staff, his players and his family.

“I want to share this award with Simone Inzaghi and Luciano Spalletti,” Guardiola says.

“Thank you to my dad. I am so happy he is here tonight and of course my brothers and sisters. Thank you to my kids and my wife. It would never be possible to live as a professional without her.”

First up it’s the award for men’s coach of the year. These are the nominees:

The Best FIFA Men’s Coach

• Pep Guardiola
• Simone Inzaghi
• Luciano Spalletti

Avant Garde’s dance performance is over and we’re into the business proper.

The live broadcast of The Best FIFA Footballer awards is underway, presented by Thierry Henry and Reshmin Chowdhury, and they’ve revealed that tonight’s ceremony is to celebrate women and women’s football, with every single award to be handed over by female presenters.

Check out the live stream to see the awards ceremony (which currently features an impressive routine of contemporary dance) by clicking on the link at the top of this page.

Few players make the sort of impact on a new club that Haaland did. The Norwegian bagged 52 goals in 53 games in all competitions in his debut season for Manchester City, spearheading the team’s run to a treble.

Winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season is a remarkable feat, with City becoming only the second club to have done so, matching the efforts of Manchester United in 1999.

And Haaland underlined his status as the best out-and-out striker in world football during the campaign, scoring with a relentless efficiency that saw him break all sorts of records, winning the Premier League Golden Boot the European Golden Shoe, and winning the Premier League Player of the Season award too.

Should he win The Best award tonight? Quite possibly. Will he? We’ll find out soon enough, with the broadcast due to start in five minutes’ time.

France’s World Cup-winning star was central to Paris Saint-Germain’s title win in Ligue 1, finishing as the division’s top scorer and being named Player of the Season.

His goalscoring form was particularly impressive in the second half of that campaign, with the forward bagging 17 league goals in 20 games during the period that this award is being judged on.

Mbappe continues to be one of, if not the, best player in world football.

Messi won the award last year thanks to his World Cup heroics, and has enjoyed another impressive year since then, winning Ligue 1 with PSG and finishing as the top assister in the French top-flight, before moving to Inter Miami and helping them to victory in the Leagues Cup in his first few months in the USA.

He’s a legend. Can he win a third The Best award to go alongside his eight Ballon d’Ors (including the 2023 award)?

Let’s have a look at the three players who are up for the individual men’s award tonight.

We’re approaching the start of the official broadcast of The Best FIFA Football Awards 2023, with the show due to start at 19:30 GMT.

Remember that you can watch the whole thing via a free stream right here on TNT Sports.

Just click the stream link at the top of this page when the broadcast gets underway and, hey presto, you’ll be in.

Without wanting to ruin the suspense, it will be an almighty shock if this award doesn’t go to Aitana Bonmati.

Spain and Barcelona’s midfield maestro had a sublime year, running the show for winners Spain at the Women’s World Cup and picking up a treble with her club side Barcelona.

She won the Golden Ball award for best player at the World Cup and has already been named UEFA Player of the Year for this period and won the Ballon d’Or.

A world-class season from a player who has it all – this should be Bonmati’s year.

On the pitch, experienced Spanish forward Jenni Hermoso has been a huge presence for the Spanish national team throughout her career. And the 33-year-old had a superb World Cup last summer, scoring three and assisting two to help her side to the title.

Hermoso is a technically excellent player, adept at slotting into a great number of roles, and helped pull the strings throughout the victorious campaign.

And, off the pitch, Hermoso ended up being the unintentional face of her team’s efforts to battle against inappropriate behaviour from the Spanish coaching team and Spanish Football Association. It is not officially one of the reasons she was initially nominated for the award – Hermoso’s brilliance on the field makes her fully deserving of that status in any case. But it should be recognised that Hermoso’s bravery and conviction in the face of pressure to silence and undermine her has played a big part in helping the Spanish national team move into what is hopefully a better and more progressive era.

Colombia’s young wing sensation made a huge impact at the Women’s World Cup as her nation and Morocco progressed from a group at the expense of established international giants Germany and South Korea.

Caicedo scored the goal of the tournament, was a livewire throughout on the left, and well and truly completed the step up from youth prospect to international star.

Still just 18 years old, Caicedo in fact played in three World Cups in this period, helping Colombia’s U17s to the final in that age group, and being part of an U20 side that reached the knockout stages of their own FIFA U20 World Cup.

She also made the big move to Real Madrid last year, and has succeed all of this in her career having being diagnosed with cancer at the age of just 15 and undergoing chemotherapy for much of 2020.

In short, she’s a phenomenon.

Back to the matter at hand, let’s take a closer look at the three finalists in The Best FIFA Women’s Player award category.

One of those who will be in attendance this evening is Manchester City forward and Men’s Player nominee Erling Haaland.

The City striker is out with an injury right now, but saw his team complete an impressive comeback at the weekend against Newcastle United in a match that was live on TNT Sports.

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The process of finding the nominees has been a long one. Initially, a panel of FIFA experts named a shortlist for each of the major awards.

And from that shortlist the final order was determined by a large jury comprised of a whole host of big names across the world game: national team coaches, national team captains and football journalists, as well as fans who voted on FIFA’s official website.

It’s possible to go into more detail on this, but don’t panic, we’ll save the technical minutiae for a little bit later on.

These are the key names for those headline awards:

The Best FIFA Men’s Player

• Erling Haaland
• Kylian Mbappe
• Lionel Messi

The Best FIFA Women’s Player

• Aitana Bonmati
• Linda Caicedo
• Jennifer Hermoso

The women’s awards are essentially judged on the majority of the previous European season through to the end of last summer’s World Cup, so all performances between 1 August 2022 and 20 August 2023.

And the men’s awards take into account all performances between 19 December 2022 and 20 August 2023, so everything since the World Cup final in Qatar last winter.

The headline awards are the two Player of the Year awards, while there are also individual awards to be handed out for men’s and women’s coach of the year and the goalkeepers of the year.

There’s also the Puskas award for the best goal of the year, the Fair Play award, and the Fan award, plus the two respective teams of the year, which will be selected from a shortlist per position.

Good evening and welcome to live coverage of The Best FIFA Football Awards 2023. A night of glitz and glamour awaits in London, with seven individual awards and two teams of the year to be named at FIFA’s showpiece awards ceremony.

The red-carpet world offers one side of the entertainment tonight, but these individual awards genuinely do matter, particularly to the players, and we’ll bring you all the news as the evening unfolds.

TNTSports.co.uk and eurosport.com will carry a free live stream of The Best FIFA Football Awards ceremony.

You will also be able to watch this free live stream via the TNT Sports and Eurosport app.

You can also follow this live blog from 18:00 on Monday night as we build up to one of the most prestigious awards ceremonies in football.