Messi, Lewandowski, Salah: Who deserves The Best FIFA Men's Player Award 2021 based on stats?

As announced last week, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski and Mohamed Salah are the three finalists for the Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award. These three have emerged after the initial list was pruned down from 11, and few can have any misgivings about the choice of finalists.

All three men have turned in outstanding performances throughout the year under review, putting them in prime position for the award.

The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award is an annual award handed out by football's premier governing body. This year's edition is set to take place on January 17th in Zurich, Switzerland.

🚨OFFICIAL: The three finalists for The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2021:

— Robert Lewandowski 🤖🇵🇱
— Lionel Messi 🐐🇦🇷
— Mo Salah 👑🇪🇬

Who Deserves To Win The Award? 🤔 https://t.co/dlO8WOvVmT

Messi and Lewandowski prior winners of The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award

Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski are the only current finalists to have ever won The Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award since its inception in 2016. Messi edged Liverpool ace Virgil van Dijk to the award in 2019 and Lewandowski finished ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo in 2020 to claim the award.

For the first time since the inception of the Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award, Cristiano Ronaldo has finished outside the top three this year.

The voting for this year's edition of the award was based on the players' performances between 8th October 2020 and 7th August 2021.

Ronaldo, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, Jorginho, N'Golo Kante, Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar were the players cut from the initial 11-man shortlist.

Here is our statistical analysis of each of the three finalists for the Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award. Who deserves to win based on performances during the voting period? Read to find out!

#3 Mohamed Salah

Mohamed Salah is an icon of the English Premier League for Liverpool

Liverpool and Egypt winger Mohamed Salah had arguably the best year of his career in 2021. The forward was impressive for Liverpool in the Premier League and UEFA Champions League, and has carried that form into 2022. Salah has made the final shortlist for the award for the first time in his career.

Salah appeared in 45 matches in the period under review and scored 26 goals as well as contributing six assists for club and country. He made 56 key passes and created 12 big chances for his teammates as he often took on the role of a creator as well for his team.

Salah's goals won his side 16 points and he won three man-of-the-match awards in that period.

𝐓𝐎𝐏 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄!!

🇪🇬 Mo Salah forms part of the three finalists for The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2021 👏🏾

#GOALAfrica #PrideofAfrica https://t.co/aTxoQLKaFO

Unfortunately for the Egyptian star, his superb performances at the start of this season will not be taken into account for this award as it was outside the voting period. This makes Salah the weakest of the three candidates, behind Messi and Lewandowski, for the Best FIFA Men's Player of the Year award.