Lionel Messi and Rodrigo De Paul have both been nominated for the 2021 IFFHS Best Player award.
Messi and De Paul are both nominated for the award where the winner will be announced at the end of November. Messi won the Best Man Player of the Decade from 2011-2020 as well as the best South American player. Messi lifted the Copa America trophy with Argentina while also being named as the best player.
In addition to being nominated for the IFFHS Best Player award, Messi is always nominated and one of the favorites to win the 2021 Ballon d’Or.
This is the first time Rodrigo De Paul has been nominated as the 27 year old had a great season with Udinese in addition to being part of the Copa America squad. Here are the players which have been nominated:
Gianluigi Donnarumma (Italy, Milan AC, Paris SG)
Leonardo Bonucci (Italy, Juventus)
Jorginho (Italy, Chelsea FC)
Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium, Manchester City FC)
N’Golo Kanté (France, Chelsea FC)
Kylian Mbappé (France, PSG)
Robert Lewandowski (Poland, FC Bayern München)
Raheem Sterling (England, Manchester City FC)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Juventus/Manchester United FC)
Erling Haaland (Norway, Borussia Dortmund)
Karim Benzema (France, Real Madrid CF)
Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona/PSG)
Rodrigo De Paul (Argentina, FC Porto)
Neymar (Brazil, PSG)
Casemiro (Brazil, Real Madrid CF)
Marquinhos (Brazil, PSG)
Gabriel Barbosa (Brazil, Flamengo)
Luis Díaz (Colombia, FC Porto )
Akram Afif (Qatar/Al Saad SC)
Sardar Azmoun (Iran/Zenith)
Mehdi Taremi (Iran/FC Porto)
Son Heung Min (South Korea/Tottenham)
Ali Mabkhout (UAE/Al Jazira)
Achraf Hakimi (Morocco/Paris SG)
Sadio Mane (Senegal/Liverpool FC)
Kalidou Koulibaly (Senegal/Napoli SSC)
Riyadh Mahrez (Algeria/Manchester City FC)
Mohamed Salah (Egypt/Liverpool FC)
Alphonso Davies (Canada/FC Bayern München)
Winston Mc Kennie (USA/Juve)
Giovanni Reyna (USA/Borussia Dortmund)
Raul Jimenez (Mexico/Wolverhampton)
Hector Herrera (Mexico/Atletico Madrid)
[…] Messi and Rodrigo De Paul have both been nominated for the 2021 IFFHS Player of the Year […]
River fans, what do you think of Santi Simon? Does he resemble De Paul a bit with the way he plays?
Funny enough when watching him I was thinking the same thing. His passing like De Paul is very good (although a difference is he so far hasn’t done those long balls De Paul is so good at) and he has good feet and technique. He is a right sided midfielder who also played as a winger for the reserve/youth teams for River and once filled in at right back for us (but don’t get your hopes up about that). He can create big chances and is also good at putting effort to recover the ball and has similar tackle/interception numbers to De Paul. However, he does not have the same physicality, explosiveness, and “run the whole pitch like a mad man” trait that makes De Paul so special (he is by no means a lazy player, but since that is one of the special characteristics of De Paul I wanted to make that distinction, not like there is any other Argentinian youngster that is like that except De La Vega that comes to mind)
Simon has a smaller stature, and he’s still only 19. Hopefully he can blossom into a decent central midfielder. For a while we had a lot of number 10s and 5s but nothing in between. Now with De Paul, Lo Celso, Palacios and Nico Dominguez we have depth, but I don’t want us to revert to producing mostly 10s and 5s again.
Yes, the good thing is exactly what you mentioned, he is not a ten nor a five so it will provide an option for balance in the future. Of course Simon could change, he is pretty much still a kid. Nobody expected De Paul to become what he is when he was at Racing or Valencia for example. We lucked out that while De Paul, Lo Celso, and Paredes all can either play more as 10’s or started out as 10’s they were able to be converted to deeper positions or adapt. In some ways Lo Celso played deeper at Tottenham can be useful for us. We also seem to have a lot of second striker options currently either in the NT or as young talents in Argentina, and an injury or two makes us have more second strikers than strikers which is interesting.
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