Accordingly, FIFA recently had to explain its decision to include Messi in the shortlist of 11 players competing for The Best 2024 award, alongside “juniors” such as Bellingham, Mbappe, Rodri, Valverde, Vinicius and Haaland.

The fact that Messi and not Lautaro Martinez are nominated for The Best has created a lot of controversy.

On its homepage, FIFA said: “Messi has turned 37 but he still maintains a great influence at Inter Miami and the Argentina team. El Pulga’s impressive performance helped the club win the 2024 Supporters’ Shield.

At the national team level, Messi also led the Argentina team to the 2024 Copa America championship. In addition, he just ended the year as the “Top scorer” of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in South America with 6 goals.

At 37 years old, Messi is still performing quite impressively. In 2024, he scored 23 goals and had 13 assists in 25 matches for Inter Miami.

However, M10’s appearance at The Best 2024 still created great controversy, especially when he was just removed from the list of 30 players nominated for the Golden Ball award a few months ago.

Not to mention that his teammate in the Argentina national team, Lautaro Martinez, is not on the nomination list this time, even though he is the brightest star of the Argentina team at Copa America 2024, when he won two individual titles: ‘Top scorer’ and Best Player of the tournament.

In addition, Lautaro Martinez also won the Serie A championship, and is also the owner of two awards ‘Top Scorer’ and Best Player of Serie A 2023/24. Therefore, the fact that Lautaro Martinez was not nominated for The Best award is considered a great injustice to this striker.

FIFA The Best 2024: Lionel Messi still has his name on the listAlthough he has passed the peak of his career, Lionel Messi still appears on the list of 11 nominees for the title “Best Men’s Player of the Year 2024” – The Best 2024.

FIFA The Best 2024 Award Nomination List