The Polish goal machine, who plays for Champions League winners Bayern Munich, was named the winner of the annual award at an online ceremony broadcast from FIFA's headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
The 2020 Best FIFA Football Awards ceremony held virtually from Zurich, Switzerland, on Thursday night. Photo: PAP/EPA/Valeriano di Domenico/POOL
The Pole eclipsed the two soccer greats and a field of other big names including Brazil's Neymar, France's Kylian Mbappe and Spain's Sergio Ramos, to pick up the coveted FIFA prize, which aims to select the world player of the year.
Photo: PAP/EPA/Valeriano di Domenico/POOL
The award was determined through a voting process in which four groups had an equal say: football fans, selected media representatives, and the captains and head coaches of national teams from around the globe, according to the fifa.com website.
Lewandowski, who captains Poland’s national team, was previously among the favorites for this year's Ballon d’Or, football's other major international annual award, but it was scrapped this year for the first time in its 64-year history because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 32-year-old was in early October named UEFA Player of the Year, a major European football honor adding to a long list of accolades for the Polish marksman.
The Pole scored 34 goals in the German Bundesliga last season and he also bagged 15 strikes in last season’s Champions League, where his Bayern Munich beat French side Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in the competition’s final in late August.
Robert Lewandowski. Photo: PAP/Adam Warżawa
Lewandowski was in June crowned the top scorer of Germany's Bundesliga premier league in the 2019/2020 season, his fifth such trophy since he began playing in Germany in 2010.
The Pole in March last year became the highest-scoring foreign player of all time in the Bundesliga, moving ahead of Peruvian Claudio Pizarro.
Lewandowski has scored 15 goals in the German Bundesliga this season and leads the table among the division’s top scorers.
Robert Lewandowski scores for Bayern against Wolfsburg in a German Bundesliga match in Munich on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. Photo: PAP/EPA/Alexander Hassenstein/POOL
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP, fifa.com
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