In a somewhat surprising turn of events, United States Women's National Team captain Carli Lloyd was pronounced as the winner of the 2016 Best FIFA's Women's Player Award this evening in Zurich. Lloyd came out on top after beating out Brazil's Marta and former German international Melanie Behringer in the final results of the vote.
Despite a down year for the US, Lloyd had a good year
After being knocked out of the tournament at Rio 2016 by Sweden in a penalty shootout during the quarter final stage, the US had the worst year in their history on the international stage. Even through all this, Lloyd was arguably one the best performers for the US, with only compatriot Tobin Heath performing better than the attacking midfielder.
2016 saw 17 goals and 11 assists for the USWNT by Lloyd while her club team, the Houston Dash, unfortunate to not have her services for most of the season due to injury and international duty, saw Lloyd rack up five goals and three assists when she was available. Her national team performances most certainly gave her the edge over all the other players in the world and is probably where the voters decided to look when casting their pick for this year's award.
Lloyd dominates the voting breakdown
The announcement was surprising because many though that Behringer was nailed on to be announced the winner of this prestigious award but, based on the breakdown in voting, it seems as though the public and the voting press and players have differing view points on this award. AP journalist Rob Harris tweeted out the following statistical breakdown of the votes.
As noted above, Behringer came in third in the results with Marta being the closest competition to Lloyd. This was a surprise for many as Behringer was the linchpin in Germany's gold medal success at Rio 2016 and Bayern Munich's title winning season of 2015/2016. It seems as though not everyone agreed with that premise and thus, Lloyd was announced as the winner for the second year in a row.