GOAL50 2022: Messi, Putellas and Maradona crowned winners after global fan vote

Lionel Messi and Alexia Putellas have been crowned winners of this year's GOAL50 awards, with Diego Maradona topping the voting in GOAL's special World Cup Wonders category. 

This is the second year the rankings were decided by a series of head-to-head battles voted on by fans all over the world, with GOAL readers coming out in force to support their favourite players. 

Millions of votes were cast across all three of our categories, with both Messi and Putellas leading the charge from the beginning, while Pele and Maradona battled it out for top spot in the inaugural World Cup Wonders category on a daily basis.

FULL MEN'S RESULTS HERE

Messi's World Cup form saw him lift the ultimate prize for the first time, following his heroics in a nail-biting final against Kylian Mbappe's France, although the little man was head and shoulders above his rivals in GOAL50, leading the voting from start to finish.

The Argentina captain has now moved past Cristiano Ronaldo to become the first player to claim six GOAL50 triumphs.

Messi was dominant in every player head-to-head battle, including against his old rival Ronaldo where he enjoyed a 61.5 percent share of the vote.

FULL WOMEN'S RESULTS HERE

In the women's vote, Alexia Putellas was the runaway victor. Like Messi, she had a winning record against all 49 of her competitors, and nobody came close to toppling the Barcelona Femeni captain.

She led the polls from start to finish, as she did in last year's vote.

In 2022, Putellas become the first female player to win the Ballon d'Or for two years in a row and was also named Fifa Best Women's Player. She can now add a second consecutive GOAL50 award to her impressive credentials.

Unlike the men and women's vote, where Messi and Putellas led from start to finish, there was fierce debate between GOAL fans in our debuting World Cup Wonders section, with legends Maradona and Pele jostling for top spot throughout the voting.

Virtually every day the lead changed hands between these two World Cup greats, but when voting closed it was Maradona who emerged victorious, perhaps pushed to glory on the goodwill generated by his beloved Argentina's triumph in Qatar.

And finally, with millions of votes cast overall, we would just like to thank you, our readers, for making this the biggest, most engaging and most exciting GOAL50 ever.

Roll on 2023!