The Guardian's Football Daily has unveiled its fourth annual Christmas Awards for 2025, offering a characteristically witty and sardonic review of the year's footballing highs, lows, and outright absurdities.
Premier League Power Plays and Misfires
The so-called Battlefield Earth Award for Good Money After Bad was handed to Liverpool. After securing the Premier League title, the club embarked on a lavish spending spree nearing half a billion pounds on stars like Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, alongside lucrative new deals for Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk. However, the report suggests manager Arne Slot's new-look team struggled to gel, creating a discordant atmosphere on Merseyside.
Over at Manchester United, Sir Jim Ratcliffe's reign earned the Jack Carter Award for Returning Local Hero. His strategies to restore the club's former glory are described as having stalled, with debt rising despite cost-cutting measures and increased ticket prices. The team under Ruben Amorim is portrayed as inconsistent, swinging from dire performances to chaotic matches, all while plans for a new circus tent-like Old Trafford stadium hint at a surreal future.
In a separate nod to Old Trafford's dugout, the Ole Gunnar Solskjær Award was pointedly given to Amorim himself for supposedly pulling a couple of big wins from nowhere just before the inevitable collapse.
International Drama and Individual Brilliance
On the international stage, the Ally MacLeod Award for a heartbreaking yet glorious World Cup campaign is pre-emptively awarded to Scotland. The predicted narrative involves an opening loss to Haiti, a scrappy draw with Morocco, and a glorious, fortuitous win over Brazil, only to be eliminated by the narrowest of margins—a fate deemed both tragic and fitting.
For England's Lionesses, Chloe Kelly's ice-cool performances at Euro 2025 secured her the Charli XCX Award for Supercool. She is hailed as the tournament's player of the year for her repeated game-saving contributions off the bench, including slotting the winning penalty in the final with notable insouciance.
Managerial Mayhem and Other Curiosities
The awards did not shy away from managerial misadventures. Nottingham Forest's brief and disastrous experiment with Ange Postecoglou, which lasted just 40 days, won the Liz Truss Award for Crashing and Burning Spectacularly. Similarly, Russell Martin's unpopular tenure at Rangers, which ended after a wild swimming team-building trip failed to prevent poor results, earned the Alan Partridge Award for Worst Waterfront Break.
In a curious technological note, the Sam Altman Award for Fostering AI Dependency went to Seattle Reign's Laura Harvey, who admitted to using ChatGPT for tactical advice, resulting in an improved league finish.
Finally, the Aaron Rodgers / Jay Leno Award was given to Mohamed Salah for his reported spectacular tantrum following Liverpool's signings of Jordan Love and Conan O'Brien from Bayer Leverkusen. The players of the year were crowned as Spain's Aitana Bonmatí and Scotland's Scott McTominay.
