Maradona, Radebe & Infantino
Maradona, Radebe & Infantino
Infantino celebrates with 'Rhoo' in the background.
Radebe will be in attendance at tonight's awards.
Former Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs defender, Lucas Radebe, knows who he'd like to win the FIFA Best Men's Player of the Year, and it's somewhat surprisingly not Cristiano Ronaldo.
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Today Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Antione Griezmann will go up against each other to find out who is this year's top male footballer, with Ronaldo the favourite to win after recently lifting France Football's Ballon d'Or.
However, Radebe believes that it should be the French nominee who walks away with the trophy, praising him for his efforts in 2016.
Speaking to Soccer Laduma's Joe Crann at FIFA Headquarters in Switzerland today, the South African said, "You know what, they're all great players. For me, I'll go away from everybody else and say Griezmann.
"I think he's been great for Atletico, he's been brilliant. He deserves it for me, for the way that he's played for his club and helped their progress."
Radebe was the only South African playing in a legends game that included players such as Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, Francesco Toldo, Mohamed Aboutrika and others.
When asked about playing with the likes of Maradona in today's game, 'Rhoo' replied excitedly, "Maradona, Batistuta, Dwight Yorke… It was absolutely brilliant. These are players that we used to watch and that I used to play again, it's amazing.
"I think this is what football is supposed to be like. It's great to see legends brought back into the game to revive it."
And what does he think about being the only South African there? "It's a great honour for me to fly the flag for South Africa. It shows that we need more legends coming from our country, more guys going abroad to compete with the best in the world. That's how we'll improve.
"We've been out of international football for a while now. We can't compete in Africa and we have to compete in the world. In order to do that we need quality, and that comes from development and getting our players to play abroad. Otherwise we're going to get stuck where we are at the moment, and that's not great.
"We've got great facilities, we've hosted big events, and it's crazy that we don't have more legends coming out and showing face in these great events."
Soccer Laduma's Joe Crann will be at The Best FIFA Football Awards in Zurich on Monday, courtesy of Spree.co.za.
The FIFA Best Men's Player award will be handed out this evening in Zurich.
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