Mikel Arteta and David Raya finished fourth in their respective categories at FIFA’s The Best awards on Tuesday night, receiving votes from players, coaches, and media across the world.
FIFA confirmed their winners for The Best Men’s Coach Award and The Best Men’s Goalkeeper Award on Tuesday, with Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and David Raya nominated in the two categories respectively.
Having won four trophies with PSG, it was unsurprising to see Luis Enrique winning the Best Coach award. For similar reasons it was very predictable that Enrique’s goalkeeper during that season, Gianluigi Donnarumma, would win the Best Goalkeeper award.
Arteta ended up finishing fourth in the Best Coach category, with Enrique followed by Hansi Flick and Arne Slot in the top three. That meant Arteta picked up more votes than Enzo Maresca, Roberto Martinez, and Javier Aguirre.
Raya also finished fourth in the Best Goalkeeper category behind Donnarumma, Thibaut Courtois, and Alisson Becker, but ahead of Manuel Neuer, Yan Sommer, Emi Martinez, and Wojciech Szczesny.
Among the players to pick Arteta as their first choice were former Gunner Mat Ryan, as well as Ghana’s Jordan Ayew.
Riyad Mahrez, David Alaba, James Rodriguez, Unai Simon, Granit Xhaka, and Jose Gimenez all put Arteta as their second choice, and Lionel Messi, Alphonso Davies, Pierre Emile Hojbjerg, Enner Valencia, Stevan Jovetic, and Aleksandr Golovin were among those to put him third.
In terms of coaches, Julian Nagelsmann was one of those to rank Arteta first, and Lionel Scaloni, Ralf Rangnick, Hajime Moriyasu, Julen Lopetegui, Dwight Yorke, Gennaro Gattuso, Luis De La Fuente, and Mauricio Pochettino all had Arteta in their top three.
But these are just a selection of names, and the complete lists of votes can be found on FIFA’s website.
Unsurprisingly, Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon and Spain coach Luis De La Fuente picked Raya as their first choice goalkeeper. Mat Ryan put Raya second, as did Tomas Soucek, Chris Wood, and Jose Gimenez.
Harry Kane, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Virgil van Dijk, and Conor Bradley were among those to put Raya third.
Among the coaches to have Raya in their top three were Graham Potter, Ralf Rangnick, Didier Deschamps, Julian Nagelsmann, Stale Solbakken, and Julen Lopetegui. Given Nagelsmann also voted Arteta as his top coach, he evidently enjoyed Arsenal’s performances this year.
It’s worth mentioning that Martin Odegaard put both Arteta and Raya second, behind eventual winners Enrique and Donnarumma. So there can be no accusations of bias there!
The full list of coach votes can be found here, and the full list of goalkeeper votes is here.