Courtois rocks Europe – AS.com

At Real Madrid, the ‘oblivion’ with the white players at The Best Awards caused surprise. It was mainly shocking that Thibaut Courtois was not chosen as the best goalkeeper, when he was in the best eleven of FIFPro. The Best for the best goalkeeper went to Emiliano Back Martínez, goalkeeper of the world champion Argentina team in Qatar. Courtois lifted the 2022 Champions League, the European Super Cup and the Spanish league with the Madrid shirt, but it was not enough to win The Best.

In the total results of the Awards, the goalkeeper of the Argentine team doubled the goalkeeper of Real Madrid in points in the favor of the fans and in the votes of the media. While the Belgian was the best of 2022 among the selectors (583 for 551 points). Among the captains, he was more even, although the Aston Villa man beat Courtois by the minimum of 557 to 556.

Analyzing each vote on the list made public by FIFA, Courtois swept among the main captains and coaches of the 55 federations in Europe. Among the captains, the goal of Real Madrid added 205 votes to the 125 of Back Martínez. For 32 European captains, Courtois was the best and was chosen in the first position. Among the coaches, the Belgian suffered the same fate. There was no discussion between the UEFA selectors and Courtois added more votes than the Argentine goalkeeper: 186 to 145.

He Back Martínez based his final victory on great popular support from fans and votes obtained outside of Europe. So it clearly follows that for the majority of voters, what happened during the World Cup marked The Best Awards ahead of the Champions League and domestic competitions.

The goalkeepers are with Courtois

Courtois was also the most valued by his teammates on the pitch. Not only because of his presence in one more edition in the best XI FIFPro, but also because of the goalkeepers themselves. Curiously, there are several goalkeepers as captains of their teams and mainly most of them chose Courtois in the first place of their preferences. So much Hugo Lloris (France)Manuel Neuer (Germany)Jan Oblak (Slovenia), Claudius Bravo (Chile) and David Ospina (Colombia) did not hesitate to choose Courtois ahead of Back Martinez. Only Lukas Hradecky (Finland) and Matt Ryan (Australia) preferred the Argentine.