FIFA World Cup awards

At the end of each FIFA World Cup final tournament, several awards are attributed to the players and teams which have distinguished from the rest, in different aspects of the game.

There are currently six awards:
*The Golden Shoe (also known as the Golden Boot, since 1982 commercially termed "adidas Golden Shoe") was first awarded in 1930 for top goal scorer;
*The Golden Ball (currently commercially termed "adidas Golden Ball") for best player;
*The Yashin Award for best goalkeeper (first awarded in 1994);
*The FIFA Fair Play Award for the team with the best record of fair play (first awarded in 1978);
*The Most Entertaining Team award for the team that has entertained the public the most, during the World Cup final tournament, as determined by a poll of the general public, first awarded in 1994;
*The Best Young Player (currently commercially termed as "Gillette Best Young Player") award for best player under 21 years of age at the start of the calendar year, first awarded in 2006.An All-Star Team (currently commercially termed "Mastercard All-Star Team") comprising of the best players of the tournament, is also announced for each tournament since 1990.

Golden Shoe

The Golden Shoe Award goes to the top goalscorer of the FIFA World Cup.

The award was introduced at the 1930 World Cup. The 2006 World Cup in Germany was the first time that the Silver and Bronze shoe awards were added to reward the second and third top scorers in the tournament. If there is more than one player with the same amount of goals, the tie-breaker goes to the player who has contributed the most assists (with the FIFA Technical Study Group deciding whether an assist is to be counted as such). If there is still more than one player, the tie-breaker goes to the player who has played the least amount of time.

¹ FIFA initially credited Nejedlý with only four goals, which would make him joint top scorer with Angelo Schiavio of Italy and Edmund Conen of Germany. However, FIFA changed it to five goals in November 2006, making Nejedlý the outright top scorer. [http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/releases/newsid=107499.html]

² FIFA initially credited Leônidas with eight goals. However, in November 2006, FIFA confirmed that in the quarter-final tie against Czechoslovakia, he scored once, not twice as FIFA had originally recorded, meaning he scored only seven goals in total. [http://www.fifa.com/en/media/index/0,1369,125346,00.html] Moreover, in some sources, Leônidas was mis-credited one Brazilian goal in the first-round match against Poland, scoring four goals instead of three in the match.

³ There was controversy regarding how many goals Brazilian Ademir Menezes scored in 1950, because of incomplete data concerning the Final Round game Brazil vs. Spain (6:1). The first goal had been credited as an own goal by Spanish defender Parra, and the 5:0 goal had been credited to Jair. However, recently FIFA credited Ademir with both these goals; thus he is the 1950 World Cup top scorer with 9 goals.

⁴ During the tournament, after the group stage match against Costa Rica, Ronaldo logged a protest against the crediting of a goal as own goal, and FIFA granted him the change.

Golden Ball

The Golden Ball award is presented to the best player at each FIFA World Cup finals, with a shortlist drawn up by the FIFA technical committee and the winner voted for by representatives of the media. Those who finish as runners-up in media voting receive the adidas Silver Ball and Bronze Ball awards as the 2nd and 3rd most outstanding players in the tournament respectively.

The Yashin Award was first awarded in 1994

Best Young Player Award

The Best Young Player (commercially termed "Gillette Best Young Player") award was awarded for the first time at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany and given to Germany's Lukas Podolski [cite web|url=http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/index.html|title=Previous FIFA World Cups™|coauthors=FIFA|language=English|accessdate=2008-07-17] . The award is given to the best player in the tournament who is at most 21 years old. For the 2006 FIFA World Cup this meant that the player had to have been born on or after 1 January, 1985. The election took place on FIFA's official World Cup website with the help of The FIFA Technical Study Group.

All-Star Team

The All-Star Team, currently named after its current sponsor "MasterCard All-Star Team", is a team of the best 23 players, chosen by FIFA's technical study group, from the World Cup Finals. The number of players was expanded from 11 to 16 at the 1998 finals, and then to the current 23.Before 1998, journalists and experts chose a "Dream Team" with outstanding players from each playing position. The teams were chosen mostly by European and South American journalists.

Only one player has been named in three separate All-Star teams: Franz Beckenbauer of West Germany, who was included in the 1966, 1970, and 1974 editions of the All-Star Team. Nineteen others have been named to two separate All-Star teams: Luis Monti (1930 and 1934; however in 1930 he was representing Argentina while in 1934 he represented Italy); Garrincha, Valeriy Voronin and Djalma Santos (1958 and 1962); Pelé (1958 and 1970); Bobby Charlton (1966 and 1970); Teofilo Cubillas (1970 and 1978); Rob Rensenbrink (1974 and 1978); Berti Vogts (1974 and 1978); Michel Platini (1982 and 1986); Diego Maradona (1986 and 1990); Paolo Maldini (1990 and 1994); Dunga (1994 and 1998); Roberto Carlos, Rivaldo, and Ronaldo (1998 and 2002); Lilian Thuram and Zinedine Zidane (1998 and 2006); Michael Ballack and Miroslav Klose (2002 and 2006).

Pelé is the only player to be named in All-Star teams 12 years apart (1958 and 1970).

Notes and references

* [http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/mcwc/ip-301%5f03a%5ffwc-awards%5fnew%5f2466.pdf FIFA World Cup awards]

* [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/fifa-awards.html#gball] For Mario kempes & Paolo Rossi 1978
* [http://www.bidthedream.com/Biography.aspx?bioId=charlton] & [http://www.ifhof.com/hof/charlton.asp] For Bobby Charlton 1966 Best Player
* [http://www.planetworldcup.com/CUPS/1930/wc30index.html] For Guillermo Stábile 1930
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4895404.stm] For Wolfgang Overath 1970
* [http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:7WR-b144JwYJ:www.nbp.pl/en/banknoty/kolekcjonerskie/2006/fifa_en.pdf+world+cup+voted+player+of+the+tournament+journalists+1974&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us] For Kazimierz Deyna 1974