The heroes and villains of The Greatest Show on Earth

As the World Cup draws to a conclusion, some great matches have been witnessed, heroes have been made, superstars have become legends, underdogs have become giant killers, Lionel Messi has taken his GOAT status up a notch and some players have unfortunately disappointed.

Here, we take a look at the players that are best positioned to win the Golden Ball (best player of the tournament), the Golden Boot (top scorer in the tournament), the Golden Glove (best goalkeeper in the tournament), FIFA Young Player award (best player 21 years or under) and also our flop of the tournament. 

So without further ado, let's begin: 

FIFA Young Player award - Josko Gvardiol
The Croatian defender has been a colossus in front of his defense and has been one of the major reasons why his team reached the semi-finals this year in Qatar. 

The 20-year-old defender helped Croatia keep two clean sheets in the group stages while his team conceded just three goals before their semi-final against Argentina.

These performances have put the RB Leipzig defender one of the hottest transfer targets in January with Real Madrid reportedly being interested in a deal worth up to 130 million Euros - a record transfer fee for a defender - to get him at the Santiago Bernabeu. 

Another candidate for this award would contain England's Bukayo Saka, who scored three goals for his team and put in a valiant effort in the quarter-final against England.

Golden Glove award - Yassine Bounou
This is a tough one to pick because there is every chance that Emiliano Martinez from Argentina could usurp the Morocco shot-stopper with a brilliant performance in the final. 

Bounou though has kept the most clean sheets of any team in the World Cup this year with four.

Bounou, who plies his trade at Sevilla was the goalkeeper of the year in La Liga last season but hadn't really caught the eye of supporters until his exploits with Morocco, which also included heroics in the penalty shootout to knock Spain out of the World Cup in the round of 16.

Another contender for this award, along with Martinez will be Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic, who also had a solid tournament and helped Croatia knock favourites Brazil out of the tournament via a penalty shootout.  

Biggest flops of the tournament - Kevin de Bruyne and Belgium
While there is no award for this, we had to include the star player for Belgium here.

One of the best midfielders in the world and of the modern era, the Manchester City midfielder was a shadow of his usual self this tournament and resulted in them being knocked out of the group stages.

There was disharmony within the Belgium camp with KdB accusing the team of being too old and having "no chance of winning the World Cup" in an interview and that didn't go down too well with his teammates.

Belgium still had enough players in the team to take them further but perhaps being in a tough group with Morocco and Croatia was too much for them.

The likes of Eden Hazard, Romelo Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois can all be accounted for not performing up to their marks at times in the tournament.

Especially Lukaku, who missed a myriad of chances in the final group stage match against Croatia, and a goal there would have seen them through and Croatia out.  

Germany also had a disappointing World Cup with another group stage exit after being stunned by Japan and never really recovering and they are also contenders for the flop of the tournament.

They performed better to get a draw against Spain, and then went on to win against Costa Rica, but it was too little too late for Hansi Flick's team who were wasteful in front of goal and badly underperformed their xG. 

Golden Boot and Ball winner- Lionel Messi
Move over Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann and whoever else wants to be the winner of the Golden Ball award because this has been Lionel Messi's tournament. 

With five goals and three assists, including four man-of-the-match awards, it's hard to look beyond the Argentina no.10.

Mbappe, Griezmann Olivier Giroud and even Messi's teammate Julian Alvarez have a chance to usurp Messi in the Golden Boot race in the final but the 35-year-old Messi has been at the heartbeat of everything that has been good about Argentina and the Qatar World Cup.

Overtaking Gabriel Batistuta's record for most World Cup goals for Argentina, Messi now has a chance to create more history if he can score and/or assist in the final and overtake Pele for the most goals and assists in the World Cup with 20. 

What will surely make him the happiest is if he won the tournament and his first World Cup - the missing piece of gold in a glittering career.