Thibaut Courtois believes Erling Haaland “deserves” the FIFA Best prize, despite missing out on Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.

Messi, who won the eighth Ballon d’Or of his extraordinary career in 2023, is set to win another coveted award in 2024. The current batch of Best awards will be presented by World Football’s governing body on January 15 at a glamorous gala in London.

Messi is up for the award alongside Manchester City attacker Haaland and Paris Saint-Germain forward Mbappe, with Courtois, who is up for the Best Goalkeeper Award, telling FIFA’s official website of his choice from the trio: “It’s always a pleasure to compete against them.” In the Champions League, for example, I kept Haaland out only for his teammates to score all of the goals. Mbappe and Messi are both wonderful players, but I believe Haaland deserves the prize the most because he has won the Champions League, the English Premier League, and the FA Cup, as well as scoring numerous goals. So he deserves it for me, even if the other two have also scored a lot of goals. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Courtois, who has also spent time with Atletico Madrid and Chelsea when competing at the highest level, has faced some of the game’s greatest players. When asked to name his hardest opponents, the Belgium international replied, “I’ve been fortunate enough to play with a lot of great players, and I can’t name just one.” Playing against Cristiano [Ronaldo], Messi, Haaland, Mbappe, and others… There are so many fantastic names to choose from, but it’s not up to me. “I’ve just had the good fortune to face some of the game’s biggest names, which is special in and of itself.”

Courtois is now recovering from knee ligament damage, with an ACL injury suffered in August causing him to have surgery and sit out the entire 2023-24 season – with the possibility of missing Euro 2024 with his country this summer.