The Annual La Liga Awards Ceremony took place in Valencia last night in an event where Antoine Griezmann trumped Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to the Best Player of the Season trophy. However, the night was to be marred by the absence of Barcelona players after their coach Luis Enrique was overlooked for the Best Coach of the Year Award despite winning the La Liga last season.
In a season where Barcelona dominated, beating Atletico Madrid twice in the League and thumping Real by a 4-0 scoreline, it was Atletico Madrid and their players who received most of the accolades on the night. Since the inception of the awards ceremony in 2008-09, it has usually been the La Liga and Copa winning team that takes home a majority of the accolades.
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However, the Best Player of the Season award went to Antoine Griezmann while the Best Coach award was bagged by Diego Simeone. To add to the big two awards, the Best Defender award went to Diego Godin while Jan Oblak took home the trophy for the Best Goalkeeper of the League. In defence of the Barcelona players, it is arguable that Luis Enrique did a decent job to win the league for the second season in a row in charge.
In addition, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez had an incredible goal and assist tally throughout the season and were deserving contenders for the Player of the Season award. While Griezmann did have a great season, most of his exploits with Atletico came in the Champions League when they knocked Barcelona out in the quarter-finals.
The only Barcelona player to win a trophy was Lionel Messi who was rated as the best forward.
The ceremony looked somewhat flawed as Lionel Messi beat Griezmann to the Best Forward award while Griezmann beat Leo Messi for the Best Player award. There were also whispers that this was done to please the Madrid clubs.
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There has been an increasing hostility in the Barcelona camp in the recent years with the growing protests for independence from Catalunya leading to the Catalans and their supporters suspecting prejudice.
Luis Suarez was the other award winner who won the La Liga World Player of the Year.
Real Madrid, on the other hand, had two successful winners with Luka Modric taking home the Midfielder of the Season award and Marco Asensio (on loan at Espanyol) bagging the Best Newcomer award.
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