FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi is one of the twelve finalists for Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year award.
"It's beginning to look a lot like"...that time of year when every website, newspaper, magazine, radio station, and television channel begins to compile lists of the best and/or worst fill-in-the-blank of the year, and Sports Illustrated is no exception. The magazine, an authority in the sporting world - something we tend to forget when their yearly swimsuit issue is released - has honored an athlete or team that embodies the "spirit of sportsmanship and achievement" during a calendar year.
The twelve candidates for 2015, which include names such as Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Carli Lloyd, and horse racing's first "grand slam" winner American Pharoah are all incredible in their own right.