By Victor Kanayo
Argentine football stars dominated the individual awards of the just concluded FIFA 2022 World Cup.
Lionel Messi at 35 in his last world cup was announced by the organisers as the best player of the tournament which made him to win the golden ball award. The Paris Saint-Germain playmaker also got the silver boot with seven goals.
His goalkeeper teammate Emiliano Martinez who saved penalties in the final clash against France won the golden gloves.
Another Argentine Enzo Fernandez aged 21, won the young player award of the 2022 mundial, taking over from Kylian Mbappe who won the award in 2018. Enzo played all seven matches at the group and Knockout stages.
Mbappe of France won the golden boot for scoring highest number of goals (eight) and sliver ball, just Captain of Croatia, Luka Modric, was adjudged third best with the Bronze Ball award.
French player Oliver Giroud took the bronze boot.
In further analysis of the quadrenial soccer event which officially ended December 18, three countries got red card each. They are Wales, Cameroon and Morocco.
Argentina got the highest number of yellow cards which is 16, Saudi 14 and Netherlands 11. Argentina got the highest foul calls of 111, Croatia was next with 94 and France 89.
A total of 172 goals were scored in 64 games, making an average of 2.69 goals per match. A total of 3,404,252 fans came to watch matches which represent are 53,191 fans per match.
England that prides itself as the home of football won the Fair Play trophy.
Total $440m prize money was made available by FIFA.
Argentina went home with $42m and the runners-up, France got $30m.
The Bronze medalist, Croatia got $27m, 4th place holder, Morocco $25m.
Teams ousted at the quarter-final placing 5th to 8th (four of them) will get $17m each. While the eight teams of the round of 16, placing 9th to 16th will each pocket $13m with total cost of $104m. Other teams that placed 17th to 32nd will take $9m, all costing $144m.
