Who will be the next “The Best”?

FIFA is handing out an award named with a straight face “The Best” on January 9th to replace the Ballon d’Or given to the world’s best player. With the gulf in class being wider than ever between the best two players in the world and the rest of the footballers alive, let’s try to look at future possibilities to be recognized as the next “The Best”.

Once upon a time in 2007, he was considered the best player in the world. Now, he is in the Number 10 role for an American club that began playing in MLS in 2015. Orlando City SC is where Kaká is currently plying his trade, which speaks volumes about how long it has been since someone other than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo have been recognized as the world’s best player.

On January 9^th 2017, FIFA is awarding a player with something called “The Best”. Votes from national team coaches and captains, members of the media and fans will no doubt vote for Ronaldo and Messi as the top two players in the world.

It is without question. But how much longer can these two continue to challenge each other to be recognized as “The Best”? There is already a whole generation of teenagers playing EA’s FIFA who have no idea who Kaká even is so outside of Messi and Ronaldo, it is a challenge to anticipate who the next football superstar will be that can be crowned “The Best”. Here are a couple of options that would be the best guesses.

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The problem with Spain’s football duopoly of Barcelona and Real Madrid is that there are some pretty fantastic players playing support roles and that is how the public, and more importantly voters for the award, likely view them.

Neymar is turning 25 in a little under a month and given his age and his ability leading Brazil’s resurgence in CONMEBOL qualifiers, it is easy to assume he is in the prime of his career. He probably needs a World Cup title in Russia 2018 and to score a few more goals to ever truly be considered as “The Best”. Similarly, the World’s Former Most Expensive Transfer (or Gareth Bale as he is known as in Cardiff) is 27 and despite scoring an important goal and penalty in Champions League finals to beat his club’s city rivals and his lead role in taking Wales to the Euro 2016 semi-finals in their first major tournament in 58 years, he seems destined to be considered Real Madrid’s Robin to Ronaldo’s Batman.

Antoine Griezmann is a good player for Atletico Madrid but his presence on this year’s “The Best” list is an old Hollywood cliché – he should be just happy to be nominated. Players like Sergio Aguero (Best goal scorer in England) and Manuel Neuer (World’s Best Keeper) who may have laid claim to being “The Best” in alternative universes with no Messi or Ronaldo will have to do with the unofficial titles in the brackets behind their names.

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The level of football that Messi and Ronaldo continue to play at, in my mind anyways, means that the title of “The Best” will probably yo-yo back and forth between the two legends. Porto’s Andre Silva is 21 and is at the right age to maybe usurp Messi and Ronaldo but given Porto’s financial troubles will likely need to do so at a bigger club to one day be considered as the best player on the planet. Evaluating world football’s best teenagers, Marcus Rashford (18) and Dele Alli (20) are making an impact on the Premier League now and have potential to improve their games but to even consider an England player to one day be “The Best” would be a classic English case of over-hyping a player.

Renato Sanches (19) at Bayern or Marco Asensio (20) at Real Madrid are young players with exceptional talent but neither gives off the impression that their best will ever be at Messi’s or Ronaldo’s level. Perhaps we need to pin our hopes on an even younger generation – Ryan Sessegnon (16) at Fulham (Gareth Bale started as a teenage left-back), Moise Kean (16) at Juventus, the next Zlatan, Alexander Isak (17) or sacrilege to say now about MLS, but could just turned 16-year-old Alphonso Davies of Vancouver be in the frame?

So where does this leave us? It’s anyone’s guess who will be the next “The Best”. Given the gulf of talent that exists between the current top two players in the world and the rest of the field, we likely have a few more years to wait to figure it out.