Football World Cup Awards

At the end of each FIFA World Cup final tournament, several awards are awarded to the players and teams which have distinguished from the rest, in different aspects of the game.

There are currently five post-tournament awards, and one given during the tourney:

Two other awards were given between 1994 and 2006.

The Golden Ball award is presented to the best player at each FIFA World Cup finals, with a shortlist drawn up by the FIFA technical committee and the winner voted for by representatives of the media. Those who finish as runners-up in the vote receive the Silver Ball and Bronze Ball awards as the second and third most outstanding players in the tournament respectively. The current award was introduced in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, sponsored by Adidas and France Football, though fifa.com also lists in their player articles as "golden ball winners" Kempes, Cruyff, Pelé, Bobby Charlton, Garrincha and Didi for 1978, 1974, 1970, 1966, 1962 and 1958 respectively. FC Barcelona is the club with the most players (3) that have won the Golden Ball award (Johan Cruyff - 1974, Romário - 1994, Lionel Messi - 2014).

Best Player

2nd Best Player

3rd Best Player

The Golden Boot or Golden Shoe Award goes to the top goalscorer of the FIFA World Cup. While every World Cup had a ranking of the goalscorers, the first time an award was given was in 1982, under the name Golden Shoe. It was rechristened Golden Boot in 2010. FIFA sometimes lists the top goalscorers of previous Cups among the Golden Boot winners.

If there is more than one player with the same number of goals, since 1994 the tie-breaker goes to the player who has contributed the most assists - with the FIFA Technical Study Group deciding whether an assist is to be counted as such. If there is still more than one player, the tie-breaker since 2006 goes to the player who has played the least amount of time.

¹ FIFA initially credited Nejedlý with only four goals, which would make him joint top scorer with Angelo Schiavio of Italy and Edmund Conen of Germany. However, FIFA changed it to five goals in November 2006, making Nejedlý the outright top scorer.

² FIFA initially credited Leônidas with eight goals. However, in November 2006, FIFA confirmed that in the quarter-final tie against Czechoslovakia, he had scored once, not twice as FIFA had originally recorded, meaning he had scored only seven goals in total.

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Wikipedia