Published 1/10/2011 5:26:18 PM by William Montero from soccermogul

The legend that is Lionel Messi continues to grow as Monday he won his second consecutive FIFA Player of the year award.   The Argentine forward beat out Barcelona teammates Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta for the renamed FIFA Golden Ball Award, which merged the FIFA player of the year with France Football's Golden Ball. Messi became the first repeat winner since Ronaldinho in 2004 and 2005. So far this season Messi has notched 18 goals in leading Barcelona to a two point lead over Real Madrid at the top of La Liga in Spain.

That makes 8 of the 20 winners of the FIFA award that have come from Barcelona, which also won with Brazilians Romario (1994), Ronaldo (1996 and 1997), Rivaldo (1999) and Ronaldinho. Lionel Messi received 22.65% of the votes cast by national team coaches and captains plus selected reporters. Iniesta followed with 17.36% and Xavi received 16.48% to finish third for the second straight year. All three finalists are products of Barcelona's La Masia youth academy.

Jose Mourinho was voted men's coach of the year after leading Inter Milan to the European Champions League title, Brazilian forward Marta was selected women's player of the year for the fifth straight time and Germany's Silvia Neid earned women's coach of the year honors.  "The most important things for me are the collective titles, not the individual ones," Mourinho said.

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