Top 20 selection… Announcement of winners in January
Former national team coach Paulo Bento (left) and captain Son Heung-min (Tottenham, right), who led the Korean national soccer team to the round of 16 at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, were selected as the best coach of the year by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) and was nominated side by side for the player nomination.
Coach Bento was included in the 20 best coach candidates for the 2022 men’s national team announced by IFFHS on its website on the 26th. IFFHS selects the best national team coaches, club managers, and players every year, and prior to that, the ‘Top 20’, which also serves as a candidate, was announced first.
Coach Bento was named among the 20 players along with coach Lionel Scaloni of Qatar World Cup winner Argentina and coach Didier Deschamps of runner-up France. As the head coach of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) country, Bento, Australia coach Graham Arnold, Japan coach Moriyasu Hajime, and Saudi Arabia coach Herve Renard were nominated.
IFFHS has been selecting the best national team coach since 1996. In this category, coach Vicente del Bosque, who led the heyday of Spanish football, holds the record for the most awards with four awards (2009, 2010, 2012, 2013). Last year, coach Roberto Mancini, who led Italy to win the European Football Championship (Euro 2020), won the award.
Son Heung-min was the only Asian player to be included in the 20 best male players of the year announced earlier. Son Heung-min tied for the top scorer (23 goals) with Muhammad Salah (Liverpool) in the 2021-2022 English Premier League (EPL), which ended in May this year, and took the lead in advancing to the World Cup finals and the round of 16 as the captain of the Korean national team.
Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain), Karim Benzema (Real Madrid), Erling Hollan (Manchester City), Harry Kane (Tottenham) and Salach were also nominated for the best male player. The male player of the year has been won by Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona) for the past two years. Lewandowski was also nominated this year.
In addition, the Korean national soccer team’s main goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu (Al-Shabaab), along with Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Hugo Lloris (Tottenham), Alisson (Liverpool), Yasin Bunu (Sevilla), and Shuichi Gonda (Shimizu), were named the best male goalkeeper of the year. I was among 25 candidates. Winners in each category will be announced in January next year.
