Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic appPlayer of the match awards rarely bring universal agreement.Lamine Yamal won the accolade after Spain’s 2-1 win over Belgium in their quarter-final on Friday, but his performance for the winning team did not appear standout.This summer’s World Cup has delivered several particularly divisive winners of the newly-named Superior Player of the Match, a title first introduced at last year’s Club World Cup as the Superior Player Award.Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Yamal and Erling Haaland are among the stars who have won the awards so far at the tournament in North America.Some recent winners — a seemingly unimpressed Yamal after a win over Austria and an equally indifferent-looking Malik Tillman struggling to even acknowledge the camera — do not necessarily seem enthused by the prestige of the award, which is sponsored by lager brand Michelob Ultra.
Chosen by the fans: Malik Tillman, your @MichelobUltra Superior Player of the Match. 🌟
#FIFAWorldCup #SuperiorPOTM pic.twitter.com/CPMKTZG6hV
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) July 2, 2026The Athletic is on hand to explain the process.How are the winners selected?Since 2010, the voting for the player of the match has been in the hands of the fans.From half-time through to full-time of any given live match, voting is open for supporters to vote for the player they want to win the award. You can vote for any player who has featured in some capacity during the match.Fans can even edit their vote before full-time, should a later goal, outstanding save, or other form of key contribution take place.Before the 2010 tournament in South Africa, player-of-the-match awards were decided by World Cup organizer FIFA. The power of the vote shifted towards fans after that tournament, via mobile phone texting and online, before voting on social media platform Twitter (now X) became the method in the 2014 World Cup.Voting moved entirely to FIFA’s website in 2022.In domestic leagues, such as the Premier League, the player of the match is often decided by the selected broadcaster. Statistics usually support the decision, and the chosen player is usually handed the award during their post-match interview.Why has the award been controversial?The fan vote element introduces the possibility of the award becoming a popularity contest, which favours the highest-profile players. That has appeared to play out on multiple occasions.In 2022, Belgium star Kevin De Bruyne, then of Manchester City, questioned why he won the award in his side’s 1-0 victory over Canada. “I don’t think I played a great game, I don’t know why I got the trophy. Maybe because of my name,” he said at a post-match press conference.This summer, Ronaldo being named Player of the Match for Portugal’s 2-1 win against Croatia in the round-of-32 caused something of a stir. The 41-year-old, who also claimed the award for the 5-0 group-stage win against Uzbekistan, was not massively involved in the match aside from the penalty he converted to level at 1-1 in the 68th minute.Barcelona’s Yamal, meanwhile, took the award for Spain’s 3-0 victory against Austria at the same stage. While he impressed during the 90 minutes, it is hard to suggest he deserved the award over Real Sociedad forward Mikel Oyarzabal, who scored twice either side of Pedro Porro’s goal.Oyarzabal was, however, selected over Yamal in the group-stage 4-0 win against Saudi Arabia. The striker scored twice and assisted Yamal’s opener, and fans clearly took to his performance in Atlanta.Many also didn’t agree with Messi winning the award for Argentina’s 3-2 victory against Cape Verde on Friday. The Inter Miami forward got the opening goal, but it was hard to ignore the contributions of Argentina defender Lisandro Martinez — who also netted, and provided the assist for Messi’s strike — or Cape Verde’s Sidny Cabral, who scored what will be a contender to be the goal of the tournament to level at 2-2.Messi has won the award in each of the three games in which he has started (Steph Chambers – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)Fans do not need to register an account on the FIFA website in order to vote. So the vote really is open to anyone, of any age, allegiance, or background.Which players have won the awards this year?Messi has won more awards than any other player, collecting four from his first five appearances in the tournament to date.England’s Jude Bellingham, Brazil’s Vinicius Junior and Norway’s Haaland have three each, while Bellingham’s team-mate Harry Kane has won two. Bellingham’s award in the 0-0 draw against Ghana raising a few eyebrows due to the African side successfully nullifying any attacking threat from their opponents.Forwards Julian Quinones and Folarin Balogun, of co-hosts Mexico and the U.S. respectively, have also each won two awards along with the superstars of Haaland, Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah.Quinones has won two awards for Mexico due to his performances (Ryan Pierse – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)Group Stage
