The daughter of the late Pele has revealed that the footballing legend wanted bitter rivals Argentina to win the 2022 World Cup for Lionel Messi after Brazil’s elimination.

After a battle with cancer, Pele passed away at the age of 82 on December 29 2022, 11 days after the World Cup final.

He spent much of the tournament in Qatar in palliative care and surrounded by family.

Pele’s beloved Brazil were eliminated at the quarter-final stage by Croatia on penalties, missing out on a South American showdown with Argentina.

His daughter, Kely Nascimento, shared a story about her father on Instagram after bumping into Messi’s wife, Antonela Roccuzzo.

Nascimento wrote: “Story time: This is the very beautiful and graceful Antonela Roccuzzo, Messi’s wife.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to meet Messi so when I met her in that magical place of every party (the ladies’ room) I passed him a message through her.

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“By the time Brazil lost against Croatia my dad was getting a lot worse. Everybody wanted Brazil to win this cup for my dad, nobody more than the national team!

“But my father understood better than most what football is like. And it was really this possibility that any team could win that he always talked about that he loved about this beautiful game.

“After the defeat of Brazil every person who entered that hospital room (all day and every day until the final!!!) said: “Hey Pele? Now who do you want? Of course Argentina NO!

“And he would say “Argentina yes! This cup has to stay in South America and Messi deserves it!

“Everyone was pretending (and sometimes not pretending) horror!!! HOW?! Argentina!!!?

“And he would simply say ‘yes, Messi deserves it’.

“He wasn’t getting to watch TV in the final anymore, but he understood that Argentina won and Messi got to lift the cup, and he was happy.

“Long live football.”

Chelsea and Brazil centre-back Thiago Silva has questioned how Julian Alvarez secured a seventh-place finish at FIFA’s The Best awards recently.

Alvarez impressed with Argentina as La Albiceleste won the World Cup during the winter but has struggled for minutes since joining Manchester City in the summer, starting just six Premier League games as he competes with Erling Haaland.

Despite that, Alvarez still managed to rack up enough points to finish seventh in the award rankings, beating the likes of Neymar, Kevin De Bruyne, Vinicius Junior and Robert Lewandowski.

Only Sadio Mane, Haaland, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappe and eventual winner Lionel Messi picked up more votes than Alvarez.

The Man City striker’s place on the list has attracted plenty of criticism from fans who argued that the impact of the World Cup played too much of a role in deciding the final rankings, and it seems as though Silva agrees.

“It’s a joke,” Silva wrote on Instagram in response to a post which questioned Alvarez’s final standing.

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The award was partly voted for by fans, with Alvarez picking up the third most votes among supporters, behind only Mbappe and Messi.

Nine of his 15 points came from the fan vote, although the City striker still managed to pick up six from the rest of the voting, which was conducted by coaches, captains and journalists from countries across the world.

Silva himself voted for international teammate Neymar to win the award, with Messi second and Benzema in third.

The Puskas Award always garners plenty of social media buzz, and there was something quite special about the 2022 winner.

Polish amputee Marcin Oleksy became the first disabled victor of the award when his seemingly impossible acrobatic strike was crowned the most impressive goal of the year.

Oleksy’s story is a remarkable one, and here’s everything you need to know about the 2022 Puskas Award winner.

Oleksy was a talented goalkeeper who idolised Iker Casillas before he suffered a life-changing accident on 20 November 2010, aged just 23.

Oleksy, who was then a construction worker and tasked with filling a hole in the road, was crushed by an out-of-control vehicle and forced to have his left leg amputated. His passion for football waned in the wake of the accident, but his love was rekindled several years later when he went for a kickaround with his son, Tomasz, who was born just after Marcin’s amputation.

Oleksy described this moment as a “turning point” and he started to play amputee football. He made a name for himself in the amputee football league and was subsequently called up to the Polish national team where he’s established himself as a star.

Oleksy competed at the 2022 Amputee World Cup, but his Polish side were eliminated by Brazil in the round of 16.

Oleksy’s strike came while playing in the PZU Amp Futbol Ekstraklasa for Warta Poznan against Stal Rzeszow last November.

And who better to describe the Puskas winner than the man himself: “My team-mate Dawid [Novak] played the pass. When I saw him approaching the ball, I knew it was coming to me. I connected really cleanly. It was pure. When I hit it, I was following the ball all the way with my eyes and I saw it go into the corner of the net. I always wanted to score a beautiful goal.

“You could see how proud it made me after I scored. I stood up tall, I put my chest out. I was just so, so happy.”

11 goals were initially nominated for the prize before a three-goal shortlist was revealed in the weeks leading up to Monday’s ceremony.

Richarlison’s acrobatic effort against Serbia at the 2022 World Cup made the final shortlist, as did Dimitri Payet’s stunning half-volley from distance against PAOK in the Europa Conference League.

However, it was Oleksy’s strike that came out on top.

The FIFA Puskas Award was established in late 2009 by then president Sepp Blatter to recognise the “most beautiful” goal of the year.

The award is named after the legendary Hungary and Real Madrid striker Ferenc Puskas. Widely considered one of the greatest players of all time, Puskas won three European Cups with Real and reached the 1954 World Cup final with the Mighty Magyars, scoring over 500 goals during his career.

Puskas died in November 2006 at the age of 79 and the award was set up as a way to honour his legacy. The first prize was won by Cristiano Ronaldo for his thundering strike against Porto in the Champions League and stars like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min have claimed it since.

All FIFA Puskas Award winners