Houston Dash midfielder Carli Lloyd was named the Best FIFA Women’s Player for 2016 at a gala in Zurich, the home of FIFA, today. The award is Lloyd’s second consecutive World Player of the Year honor, making her the second American and fifth woman ever to win the award in back-to-back years.
Lloyd missed much of the 2016 Houston Dash season due to injury, but made a major impact in the games she did play in for the club. In seven matches in Orange, Lloyd scored five goals and assisted on three others, an average of 1.86 points per match. The Dash went 4-3-0 and averaged 2.42 goals per game with Lloyd on the field last season, and posted a 2-7-4 record and 0.92 goals per game without her.
For the U.S. Women’s National Team, Lloyd scored 17 goals, including two goals in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and assisted 11 others in 21 matches, a scoring average of 2.14 points per match.
Voting for the award was divided into four categories – coaches of national teams from around the world, captains of those national teams, worldwide media and fans. Lloyd finished first in the voting amongst her peers and the coaches and was second in the fan vote, collecting 20.68% of the total vote.
Lloyd has played 232 times for the USWNT and leads the active team in scoring with 96 career goals, leaving her four goals away from becoming the sixth player in U.S. history to score 100 goals. She was named the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year in January of last year after leading the USWNT to victory in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, where she won the Golden Ball as the tournament’s most outstanding player.
