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Arsène Wenger was last night named World manager of the year in the FIFA awards ceremony in Rome. An extraordinary achievement given the lack of trophies in the last couple of years.
Unsurprisingly, the French had a good night of it.
French national coach and Euro2000 winner Roger Lemerre came in second in the managers poll, and Zinedine Zidane won player of the year ahead of Rivaldo and Figo.
In the millenium awards, Maradona and Pele were both declared player of the century, after each had threatened to boycott if the other got it ahead of them.
We're a bit confused by the coach award. We think it's the
(also very prestigious) Onze Mondial award but it's being
reported as if it's another FIFA one. The FIFA website doesn't mention the award, which should be a clue! See RSSSF for previous OM winners.
The FIFA website carries this list of national team coaches' votes for their player of the year, sorted by country. Nice to see Thierry Henry's
name mentioned a good few times, including 3 first places from the world football powerhouses of Hong Kong, Qatar, and the Virgin Islands. Mind you, even Andy Cole got one 3rd place (from the Cape Verde islands).
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