Cristiano Ronaldo crowned 2023 Best Middle East player at the Globe Soccer Awards
Cristiano Ronaldo has been awarded the 'Best Middle East Player' at the 2023 Globe Soccer Awards held on Friday (19 January) at Atlantis, The Palms, in Dubai.
Ronaldo moved to Al-Nassr in January 2023 after his contract was mutually terminated at Manchester United in November 2022. He has since been in impressive form for them, registering 38 goals and 13 assists in 44 matches across competitions.
The 38-year-old has scored a major chunk of his goals at Al-Nassr in the ongoing 2023-24 campaign. He has found the back of the net 24 times and has provided 11 assists in 25 games across competitions.
The Globe Soccer Awards have been around since its first edition was held in December 2010. It is announced by Globe Soccer and takes place annually, awarding footballers for their achievements across a host of categories.
Among those is the 'Maradona Award for Best Goalscorer', which was also won by Ronaldo. He finished 2023 with 54 strikes in 59 matches, finishing ahead of Paris Saint-Germain's (PSG) Kylian Mbappe [52 goals, 53 games] and Bayern Munich's Harry Kane (52 goals, 57 games).
Cristiano Ronaldo is a six-time Globe Soccer 'Best Player of the Year' award winner
Al-Nassr's Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Globe Soccer 'Best Player of the Year' award a record six times. He first won it in 2011 before clinching it for the second time in 2014.
The former Manchester United and Juventus striker then won it four consecutive times from 2016 to 2019. No other player has won the award more than once. However, he failed to bag the award in the latest edition, where he was among 11 finalists.
The award, which has two rounds of voting, both involving fan participation, went to Manchester City's Erling Haaland. The Norwegian hitman ended 2023 with 50 goals in 60 matches to his name, helping Manchester City win a historic treble.
Apart from Ronaldo and Haaland, the finalists also included the likes of Mohamed Salah, Karim Benzema, Lionel Messi, and Kevin de Bruyne, among others. Ronaldo's rival, Messi, has won the award just once, with the award coming in 2015.