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Since the beginning of the World Cup quite a few times, eyebrows have been raised regarding the selection of the man of the match title. Luka Modric was named outstanding after a weak 0:0 against Morocco, Kevin de Bruyne surprisingly received the title after the narrow victory over Canada and yesterday (Wednesday) Lionel Messi received the award after missing the penalty against Poland in Argentina’s victory.
As I remember, after learning that he won the man of the match title against Canada, De Bruyne himself said: “I don’t think I played well, I don’t know why I got the award. Maybe it’s because of my name, but I wasn’t good enough.” Even after yesterday’s game, Messi thought, like the Belgian, that the title was not deserved and passed it to the scorer of the first goal, Alexis McAllister.
So why and how are the outstanding ones chosen? It’s much simpler than you might expect. During each match in the tournament between the 60th and 88th minutes, a vote is opened on the FIFA+ website, where surfers can choose their outstanding player for that match, with each surfer having a single vote.
Any surfer who is registered to the website can vote, when he doesn’t even have to watch the game to take part, which explains the puzzling choices and answers De Bruyne’s question: some players receive the awards because of the name and not because of the ability in the game.