23/05/2017
LIONEL MESSI (Barcelona): Some people said Messi was past his best. They were wrong. Nowhere was this more thrillingly and emphatically demonstrated than at the Santiago Bernabeu on April 23. Casemiro kicked him. Marcelo elbowed him. Sergio Ramos tried to chop him in two. But Messi kept coming. Right until the very last seconds, when the Pichichi winner fired home his 500th goal for Barcelona to earn his side a famous 3-2 victory at the home of their great rivals, Real Madrid. Then, he stopped and stood silently, defiantly, before a crowd baying for more of his blood and showed them the back of his shirt. No.10. Messi. Still the greatest player in the world.
Lionel Messi Barcelona Real Madrid
ALEXIS SANCHEZ (Arsenal): If there was one moment that typified what Alexis Sanchez is all about, it was when he sealed a crucial victory for his side at Stoke just moments after signalling to the bench that he would have to come off injured the next time the ball went dead. Essentially, the Chilean is as tenacious as he talented, "a fighter" as Arsene Wenger calls him. There is finesse to his game, too, though — and even that was on show at the Britannia, with Alexis producing the pass of the Premier League season to set up Mesut Ozil for a goal that made it 10 assists this term for a player who has also netted 24 times. Where would Arsenal be without him?!