Sportskeeda Football Awards 2016: Forward of the Year

Modified Dec 28, 2016 09:14 GMT

#1 Lionel Messi ((Reader’s Rank: 2, Sportskeeda’s Rank: 1)

And the winner of the SK Forward of the Year Award is …... Lionel Andres Messi.

Barcelona failed to repeat their historic 2014/15 season last year was partly due to the sporadic injuries that Messi suffered during the campaign. Messi’s impact on the Barcelona team is far greater than any player has or has had. The diminutive Argentine is their main goalscoring threat, while also being their creator in chief, while also dropping deep and pulling strings from deep if need be – as we have witnessed on a few occasions this season.

That was just Barcelona, moving on to Argentina. Under Messi’s guidance and captaincy, La Albiceleste have reached the final of three consecutive international tournaments – FIFA World Cup, Copa America and Copa America Centenario. Although they did fail to come out victors on each of the three occasions, it goes out only to prove that Messi is all but human.

He was their standout player in each of the three tournaments but he either failed to come up good when it mattered the most or was let down by his teammates – more of the latter.

Despite the failures and the heartbreaks, Messi lifted his 8^th La Liga with Barcelona this year, coupled with his fourth Copa del Rey and his 7^th Supercopa de Espana – not a bad year by any standards. Now add to that the 59 goals that he scored and the 32 assists that he gave during the course of the year and you will understand why Lionel Messi is SK Forward of the Year 2016.