The 2025 FIFPRO World XI nominees were announced on Monday and the shortlist left a number of established performers off the list. Several omissions have prompted debate over which players deserved recognition.<\/p>\n
Harry Kane was one of the most surprising names absent. He led the Bundesliga in scoring last season, finished with 41 goals in all competitions and won his first major trophy. Kane also finished fifth in the European Golden Boot race behind Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, Mohamed Salah and Robert Lewandowski. The shortlist included two of those names and excluded two, making his omission notable given his scoring numbers.<\/p>\n
The exclusion of Gabriel also raised eyebrows. “It’s honestly preference comparing Gabriel and William Saliba, but for many who watched Arsenal closely the Brazilian was arguably the better of the two last season.” The piece highlights Gabriel\u2019s role as a defensive leader who also poses a significant threat from set pieces and notes he is being spoken of as a potential player of the season for the current campaign.<\/p>\n
Wojciech Szcz\u0119sny was another overlooked name. He returned from retirement midseason to join Barcelona in crisis and made his debut on Jan. 4. By the end of the campaign he had added three more trophies as Barcelona completed a first domestic treble. He subsequently earned a new contract extending his stay through 2027.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s midfield pairing also suffered from the voting. The article points to Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch being left out and argues both had strong claims. Mac Allister missed only three Premier League games last season, contributed 10 goal involvements and was an important part of the title-winning engine room.<\/p>\n
Finally, Mois\u00e9s Caicedo was highlighted as a major snub. Caicedo played every Premier League match last season as Chelsea secured a top-four finish under Enzo Maresca, scored in the UEFA Conference League final and played a major role in Chelsea\u2019s FIFA Club World Cup victory over the summer.<\/p>\n
These five absences underline the difficult choices in assembling a World XI and why the 2025 shortlist has drawn criticism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Five absences from 2025 FIFPRO World XI: Kane, Gabriel, Szcz\u0119sny, Mac Allister and Caicedo shortlist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1017,1062,190,175],"tags":[1023,299,1140],"class_list":["post-4091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-barcelona","category-bayern-munich","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","tag-alexis-mac-allister","tag-arne-slot","tag-caicedo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}