Not surprisingly, football dominates the annual ranking of the best teams of the year, which is compiled by the International Association of Sports Press (IASP). The organisation surveyed 420 journalists from 113 countries online. Their votes were cast for Argentina’s men’s football team, which was crowned world champions last month in Doha. La Selección received 1,399 votes, or 37.01% of the vote. They are ahead of two other men’s national football teams: Morocco (381 votes – 10.08%) and France (252 votes – 6.67%). Only one women’s team made it into the top 10: England, the European football champions. With six places in the top ten, football crushes everything. The four teams representing other sports are the Red Bull F1 Team in 6th place (179 votes – 4.74%), the Italian men’s volleyball team in 7th place (166 votes – 4.39%), the Finnish ice hockey team (9th with 128 votes – 3.39%), and finally the Golden State Warriors, NBA champions last June (125 votes – 3.31%). Football also dominates the individual rankings. The panel of 420 international journalists surveyed by the AIPS named Lionel Messi as the male athlete of the year, with 25.45% of the votes, ahead of Swedish pole vaulter Armand “Mondo” Duplantis (9.87%) and another football player, Frenchman Kilian Mbappé (9.68%). In the women’s competition, Spain’s Alexia Putellas completed the football raid. She is ahead of American swimmer Katie Ledecky and Venezuelan triple jumper Yulimar Rojas.
