Before the first match of 2026, the most concerned event in European football is not only the various news in the transfer market that is difficult to distinguish between true and false, but also the enthusiastic complaining about the best awards awarded by major institutions at the end of last year.

Although the major leagues in Europe are held across years, the vast majority of official awards are often held at the end of each year, and many of them are judged based on the performance of the whole year, which is a somewhat confusing system.

However, no matter what the selection mechanism of these awards is, Li Mudi seems to be born with a halo of insulation from the awards, and he is rarely favored by the judges.

When he first coached Castile, he won two championships at the same time, La B and the Federal Cup, which made him highly praised in Spanish football that year. It's just that Spain's third-level professional league does not have its own award program, so Li Mudi can be ranked fourth in the Spanish best coach awards that season jointly selected by the Spanish Football Association and major media, which is already a very high honor, and naturally there is no bigger award to award him.

After moving to the Apennine Peninsula, due to the team's results in the previous two years, it was natural that the awards of the first division were missed. finally led the team to win the league championship in the last season, but because the Serie A Oscar award ceremony was held in January every year, Li Mudi, who was already in charge of the birth of his daughter and had no time to pay attention to other matters, naturally did not attend in person, and the result was a big upset, and the best coach award, which was originally thought to be the best coach in hand, was awarded to Spalletti, who also performed well in Inter that year, which caused a lot of controversy.

Obviously, the selection of the Italian Football Association is also the same as some countries, there is an unspoken rule that candidates will be disqualified if they are not present, even if Li Mudi does not care much about the name of the best coach in Serie A, but it is inevitable that there will be some small complaints in his heart, thinking that his defeat is still unfair.

After entering the Emirates Stadium, the situation took a 180-degree turn. When I played the football manager game, many players liked to play in the Premier League, in addition to the personal plot, the competition between the teams is very fierce and other reasons, I am afraid that the number of awards is also one of the unavoidable factors.

The first of the five major leagues to be the best of the month was the Premier League, and then it was imitated by Ligue 1 and Bundesliga, but in terms of influence, it is still the originator.

And the UK's Season of the Season award is also divided into three widely recognized awards, namely the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), the Football Journalists' Association (FA) and the Premier League.

What's even better is that these three awards are basically decided before the end of the season, which also gives Li Mudi, who was imposing when he was in charge of the Gunners back then, finally have a chance to taste the feeling of holding a trophy.

With 11 Premier League Manager of the Month awards, two Coach of the Year or Season titles in all three of the above awards, and two Champions League Manager of the Year awards in 2022 and 23, the three years in charge in north London were the most recognised by the outside world since Li Mudi crossed over, and I still feel nostalgic in retrospect.

It's just that since returning to the Bernabeu in the summer of 2024, the hard days have returned to the time when I worked and lived in Turin, and La Liga has no official award of the month. And although there are also parts of the season's selection voted by fans, because the most influential media in Madrid and Catalonia such as "Marca" and "As" will also have their own selections, this greatly affects the authority of the official awards, resulting in a large number of Spanish awards, but none of them can be unanimously recognized by everyone.

Take last season as an example, although Real Madrid won the league and the Copa del Rey, it can be said that they did not encounter any opponents in the domestic competition. However, because Barcelona won the Champions League later, many fans and even the judges of the Football Association failed to strictly follow the criteria of only referring to the performance of domestic competitions, and voted for Barcelona players.

Coupled with the rotation system used by Real Madrid, which led to the fact that players generally did not play much, giving the outside world a reason not to vote for them, the end result is that several of the best selections of the season have been very different, and each of them has caused a lot of controversy, so naturally not many people will pay attention to these honors.

Even the best coach of the season, who should have been the most undisputed, Li Mudi failed to complete the package, you know how mixed the water is.

In addition to his own bad fate with the award, the current Real Madrid coach also seems to have some halo effects that implicate his players.

In 2025, there will be neither the World Cup, the Olympics nor the European Championship, so conventionally, the selection of the Ballon d'Or and the World Footballer of the Year in this year will mainly depend on the performance of the league, especially the Champions League. But the big ear Cup winner Barcelona has only such a trophy to show off all season, and the rest of the field has been suppressed by the sworn rival Real Madrid, especially the results of the two teams in the second half of the year, which can be called a world of difference, and in this case, it is obviously impossible to get everyone's approval of the world's best award to Barcelona's player.

The favourites would naturally be the favourites between Premier League champions Liverpool and La Liga champions Real Madrid, as the Ballon d'Or (whether or not it is combined with FIFA) has been won by the two major leagues over the next 18 years since Kaka in 2007.

First, the decade-long reign of the peerless duo of Melo, and then the easy end of the two-man period by Modric, the world football has since entered a melee stage of competition for dominance, until Li Moody led the team to a super result in his second season at Real Madrid.

During this period, Juventus and Bayern Munich each won the Champions League, helping Cristiano Ronaldo and Hummels to receive the most prestigious award for individual players at the end of their careers, and also breaking the situation that the Ballon d'Or has been won by the English and Spanish leagues. However, Real Madrid, Arsenal (for the second year in a row), Manchester City and Barcelona won the Champions League in quick succession, bringing the Ballon d'Or back to the previous model of players playing in the two leagues.

Under the premise that the most dominant Champions League winners were the first to go out due to their sluggish performance in the league, the members of the champions of these two leagues are basically the most qualified to win the award. Of course, upsets cannot be ruled out, especially in the years when FIFA forcibly merged with the Ballon d'Or, the election of Messi in 2010 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013 was not convincing at all, after all, in the minds of the majority of media and fans, Sneijder and Ribery were the best players in those two years. But the situation at that time was a special case after all, and the Golden Globe Awards that existed alone were still relatively credible on the whole.

So in people's eyes, the 2025 Ballon d'Or winner will basically be produced among Trent Alexander Arnold, Curtis Jones, Ben Woodburn, Mbappe, Asensio and Skriniar, and they have all entered the final top ten list, which proves that the vision of the masses is still relatively reliable.

Not to mention the fierce verbal battles and canvassing for players playing in their respective national leagues before the draw, from the perspective of neutrals alone, the bonuses that Liverpool and Real Madrid can bring to the players in the team are basically evenly matched.

In terms of importance, the Copa del Rey is certainly slightly stronger than the English League Cup, but the intensity of the Premier League is also ahead of La Liga, and it is indeed much more difficult for the Reds to snatch the trophy from the hands of Manchester City and the London top three.

However, in the Champions League, Real Madrid's semi-final results are also further than Liverpool's quarterfinals, so in terms of team honors, the players on both sides can be regarded as a draw, and it is difficult to distinguish the winner from the loser.

It's just that if you compare how irreplaceable the players have played in the team's achievements in this year, Real Madrid's players are obviously at a loss, and the playing time of several cores is not too much, which seriously affects their statistics. If it weren't for the invincible record of the Galacticos at the beginning of this season and attracting the attention of the world football world, perhaps Ben Woodburn, England's new generation striker who has scored 44 goals and provided eight assists in 57 games throughout the year, could have been announced in advance as the world's No. 1.

As we entered November, Lee considered whether he should allocate more playing time to several players who had a chance to challenge for the award, so that they could brush their faces before the voting deadline to see if they could get more support from the judges.

But in the end, it was the idea of team supremacy that overshadowed the idea of the player's personal interests, and then Raul also expressed his support for the team manager, believing that Real Madrid's greatness no longer needs more footballer titles to decorate, and only by winning the treble this season will it bring the club a proud glory, and the rest of the things are floating clouds and do not need to be taken too seriously.

Mbappe, Asensio and Skriniar took second to fourth place in this year's Ballon d'Or, but the only spot that can go down in history was taken by the England striker.

When the British media broke the news in early December that the staff of France Football had secretly arrived in Liverpool, there was a wail throughout Madrid and even the whole of Spain. And when Ben Woodburn lifted the Ballon d'Or trophy, there was a fierce debate among fans around the world, with many believing that the Liverpool striker's election was not worthy of the name.

After that, the French media released the results of the vote, and Mbappe was only 28 points less than Woodburn, the second place with the smallest gap to the Ballon d'Or winner in history. The England star's 23.79% of the vote also set a record for the lowest number of winners since the award was admitted to more media from around the world as judges, which proves that his election is indeed still controversial.

It's just that no matter how the outside world questions it, the new first person in football is also unchangeable, even if the best player in Europe and the best male player in FIFA (that is, the world footballer of the year) were awarded in August and September last year, Artur and Mbappe respectively, but in everyone's minds, it is obvious that the Golden Ball Award is more golden.

And 2025 is also the first time since the end of the cooperation between FIFA and "French football" magazine in 2016 that the three major awards have been awarded to three players respectively, which makes the melon-eating crowd very excited, because they know that there is another wonderful tearing X battle to enjoy.

As for who is the one who stands at the top of today's world football, there has been endless debate from the outside world since Melo and the two handed over the throne, but whether it is Neymar who ushered in the second spring of his career at Old Trafford, or Anthony Martial, who has shown high expectations after joining Juventus, or Lautaro Martinez, Woodburn and Mbappe, who are in or just entering their prime, they all have their own fans, and of course, there are also many opponents.

Regarding this question, Li Mudi also had to encounter constant questions from reporters at the pre-match press conference of the 19th round of the league against Rayo Vallecano on January 4, which caused him a headache.

Judging by the current rating of ability in the FM system, the Real Madrid manager, who just used a scouting tool four days ago, can easily say that Anthony Martial, Kylian Mbappe and Chelsea-playing Belgian midfielder Tielemans are the most capable players in world football today.

It's just that this way of judging is definitely too one-sided, and different positions have different requirements for the players' abilities, such as comparing the two forwards, in a series of related abilities such as shooting, speed, prediction, and running without the ball, both of which are exactly the same, but A is stronger than B in steals, defensive positions, and throwing sideline balls, so can we say that the former with a higher current ability value is a better shooter than the latter? Obviously not.

Therefore, considering the actual characteristics of each person and the differences in the environment, it is difficult to draw a conclusion about who is the best in the world. However, Li Muddy knows that it will not take too long for Mbappe to throw off the rest of his rivals and become a leader in world football. Because the Frenchman's potential is 190, there is still some room for growth, while the other two have already reached the ceiling of talent, and there is no possibility of improvement.

As for the best in the world in five or even ten years, the Real Madrid boss is certainly not sure to make a judgment right now, but there is already a prediction full of uncertainties, and that is what he will be trying to do in the coming months.

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