Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo Among Finalists for 2020 The Best FIFA Award

FIFA announced Friday that Barcelona's Lionel Messi, Juventus' Cristiano Ronaldo and Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski are the three finalists for the 2020 The Best FIFA men's player of the year award:

The Best FIFA awards have been given out since 2016, and both Messi and Ronaldo have been a big part of it. Messi is the reigning men's player of the year and is a finalist for the fourth time, while Ronaldo is a five-time finalist and won the award in both 2016 and 2017.

Lewandowski, who may be the favorite to take home this year's award, is a first-time finalist on the heels of a spectacular performance for Bayern during the 2019-20 season.

Messi scored 25 goals in the last La Liga season, while Ronaldo scored 31 in Serie A and Lewandowski topped them both with 34 in Bundesliga.

Overall, Lewandowski scored a remarkable 55 goals across all competitions, as Bayern won a treble by taking the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and UEFA Champions League titles.

Winning The Best award would be a huge deal for Lewandowski not only because he has never accomplished the feat before, but also because he won't have the opportunity to capture another major individual honor for 2020.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that no 2020 Ballon d'Or award will be given out.

Per ESPN's Stephan Uersfeld, Lewandowski expressed disappointment regarding the Ballon d'Or situation and made it clear that he felt he would have won the award: "We won everything we could with Bayern. I was the top scorer in all competitions I featured in and I think a player who achieves this would win the Ballon d'Or."

In addition to The Best men's player award, FIFA also announced finalists for several other The Best awards, including women's player and both men's and women's goalkeeper.

The women's award will come down to Manchester City's Lucy Bronze, Chelsea's Pernille Harder and Lyon's Wendie Renard.

Meanwhile, The Best men's goalkeeper is between Liverpool's Alisson, Atletico Madrid's Jan Oblak and Bayern Munich's Manuel Neuer, and The Best women's goalkeeper will be contested by Lyon's Sarah Bouhaddi, PSG's Christiane Endler and Alyssa Naeher of the Chicago Red Stars and United States women's national team.

FIFA noted that the winners of each award will be announced Dec. 17 as part of a virtual show broadcasted from FIFA headquarters in Zurich.