What are the FIFA World Cup 2022 awards?

In addition to awarding the Jules Rimet Trophy to the winning team, other individual honours will be presented to players.

Today, the awards for the biggest football competition will be given out. Everyone knows that Lionel Messi could become the first player in World Cup history to win two Golden Balls. Kylian Mbappe could do something special to add to his 2018 Young Player Award.

On Sunday, the FIFA World Cup will conclude in Qatar. In addition to awarding the Jules Rimet Trophy to the winning team, other individual honours will be presented to players. Both Lionel Messi (captain of Argentina) and Kylian Mbappe (star of France) are in contention for two of these awards as they lead their respective sides to a third World Cup championship. Tell me, then, about these honours. How do they make that choice? To begin:

Golden Boot

Simplest of all, the Golden Boot goes to the player who ends the competition with the most goals. When many players have the same number of points, the tie is broken according to the following criteria: The highest number of assists while playing the fewest total minutes.

They've each scored five goals, but Messi has three assists to Mbappe's two. Despite Mbappe's younger age, Messi has played more minutes (570) than he has, with 477.

There are two more contenders for the highest scorer award that will be participating in the championship game. All four goals have been scored by either Julian Alvarez of Argentina or Olivier Giroud of France.

A player from Croatia or Morocco may also pose a threat to these four for the Golden Boot, though it is by no means guaranteed. Andrej Kramaric of Croatia has scored twice, while Youssef En-Nesyri of Morocco has scored twice as well.

In 1982, Paolo Rossi of Italy earned the first-ever Golden Boot award after scoring six goals at the World Cup in Spain. The Golden Shoe was the name of the place back then. Originally known as the Golden Shoe, the award was renamed in 2010 to the Golden Boot.

Golden Ball

Choosing the winner of the Golden Ball, awarded to the tournament's top player, is a very subjective procedure. Following a shortlisting process by FIFA's technical research committee, media representatives from around the world decide the winner by voting.

It's not just Messi and Mbappe who might win the Golden Ball; France's engine, Antoine Griezmann, and Croatia's talismanic captain, Luka Modric, who won the award in 2018 despite his team losing the final to France, are also in the running.

With the introduction of the Golden Boot at the 1982 World Cup, the Golden Ball was also created. The only player to ever win both the Golden Boot and Golden Ball in the same season was Rossi, who can do it this year?

It's possible that Messi will follow in his footsteps and become the first player to win 2 successive Golden Ball awards. He was the best player in the 2014 World Cup too.

Intriguingly, a player who was not on the winning side has won the Golden Ball in each of the last six World Cups. Only Rossi, Maradona (1986), and Romario (1994) have won the trophy and the Golden Ball.

The players who finish second and third in the voting receive a Silver Ball and a Bronze Ball, respectively.

Golden Glove

The Golden Glove was first given to the best goalie at the World Cup in the USA in 1994. It was first called the Lev Yashin Award in honour of the goalkeeper for the former Soviet Union. In 2010, it was renamed the Golden Glove.

Even though it is also subjective, like the Golden Ball, Fifa technical study group decides the winner but not by voting. When there is a close race between two or more goalkeepers, the one who has gone further in the tournament usually wins. The number of saves and the number of times players are also used to break ties.

The best goalkeeper prize in Qatar is likely to go to either Emi Martinez of Argentina, Hugo Lloris of France, Dominik Livakovic of Croatia, or Yassine Bounou of Morocco.

Oliver Kahn from Germany is the only player to have won both the Golden Glove and the Golden Ball. This happened in 2002 in South Korea and Japan.

Other awards

Other prizes include the "Young Player Award," "Fair Play Trophy," and "Most Entertaining Team." The young player award goes to the best football player under the age of 21. Mbappe won it at the 2018 World Cup in Russia when he was only 19. If he wins it again in Qatar, it will be a unique double that shows how he has gone from being a child prodigy to one of the best players in the world, if not the best.