Real Madrid’s Luka Modric claimed FIFA’s The Best award for 2018 to end Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s decade-long hold on world football’s top player prize.
The Croatia midfielder won with 29 percent of the votes, coming in ahead of Ronaldo (19 percent), Mohamed Salah (11.2 percent), Kylian Mbappe (10 percent) and Messi (9 percent), who along with Ronaldo skipped the ceremony.
Modric was presented with the award following a ceremony in London on Monday night. The Modric win, the first in ten years that does not go to either Messi or Ronaldo, sparked a lot of reactions from Social Media..
End of an era..
We are finally leaving the Dominant Era of Messi and Ronaldo in World of football.
Give it up for the well deserved FIFA Footballer of the Year
Luka Modric❤️❤️#FIFAFootballAwards pic.twitter.com/6Dds8ifzsU
— Salman 👑 (@NotJustSalmanPR) September 24, 2018
Famous Spanish football journalist..
Anyway, whatever else you/we think, for all the debates and whatnot, Luka Modric is a lovely player and it feels like quite a nice shift for his *type* of player to win it.
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) September 24, 2018
While some were not impressed..
I'm a die hard Madrista and I love Luka Modric but Ronaldo deserved #TheBest FIFA men's player of the year award by far. CR7 was the most deserving by miles, shouldn't even have been close.
Anyway, congrats Lukita. pic.twitter.com/oiOqsonaK2— Rasik Ashraf Bhat (@RasikBhatman) September 24, 2018
Hazard?
Iniesta & Sneijder deserved it but didn’t win it in their prime but Luka Modric that James Rodriguez ran to the ground in UCL semis deserves it??& if you actually watched the World Cup then you know Hazard played better than everybody else #TheBest #FIFAFootballAwards
— CHIEF (@SabiChief) September 24, 2018