The Best Male Soccer Player ESPY Award is presented annually to the male soccer (association football) player adjudged to be the best in a given calendar year amongst those contesting the sport on the professional or international level. The award, along with the Best Female Soccer Player ESPY Award, evolved from the Best Soccer Player ESPY Award, which was awarded in 2000 and 2001, and the latter once more absorbed the gender-specific awards in 2005.

During the award's three years, the voting panel comprised variously fans, who participated through Internet balloting; sportswriters and broadcasters, sports executives, and retired sportspersons, termed collectively experts; and ESPN personalities. The ESPY Awards ceremony was conducted in June and awards conferred reflected performance and achievement over the twelve months previous to presentation.

An ESPY Award (short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) is an accolade presented by the American cable television network ESPN to recognize individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performance during the calendar year preceding a given annual ceremony. The first ESPYs were awarded in 1993. Because of the ceremony's rescheduling prior to the 2002 iteration thereof, awards presented in 2002 were for achievement and performances during the seventeen-plus months previous. As the similarly-styled Grammy (for music), Emmy (for television), and Academy Award (for film), the ESPYs are hosted by a contemporary celebrity; the style, though, is more relaxed, light, and self-referential than that of many other awards shows, with comedic sketches usually included. The host for the 2011 ESPYS is Seth Meyers and the head writer is Jonathan Drubner.

From their inception to 2004, ESPY Award winners were chosen only through voting by fans. Since 2004, sportswriters, broadcasters, sports executives, and sportspersons, collectively experts; or ESPN personalities also vote. Award winners have been selected thereafter exclusively through online fan balloting conducted from amongst candidates selected by the ESPY Select Nominating Committee.

Lionel Andrés Messi (Spanish pronunciation: [ljoˈnel anˈdɾes ˈmesi], born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine footballer who plays in La Liga for FC Barcelona and is the captain of the Argentina national team, mainly as a forward.

By the age of 21, Messi had received Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations. The following year in 2009 he won both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year, and won the inaugural FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2010 and 2011. He also won the 2010–11 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. Messi is the fourth football player to win three Ballons d'Or, after Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten and the second player to win three consecutive Ballons d'Or, after Michel Platini. His playing style and small stature have drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi as his "successor".

Messi has won five La Liga titles and three Champions League titles. In 2012, Messi made UEFA Champions League history by becoming the first player to score five goals in one match, in a 7–1 win against Bayer Leverkusen. With two goals in the next round against A.C. Milan, he matched José Altafini's record of 14 goals in a single UEFA Champions League/European Cup season. He also became the first player to top-score in four successive European Champion Clubs' Cup campaigns. He set the world record for most goals scored in a season during the 2011–12 season, with 73 goals.

Kyle Maynard (March 24, 1986) is a speaker, author and ESPY Award-winning mixed martial arts athlete, known for achieving all this despite being a congenital amputee.

Maynard works as a speaker for the Washington Speaker's Bureau, specializing in motivational speeches. He is the author of the memoir No Excuses: The True Story of a Congenital Amputee Who Became a Champion in Wrestling and in Life . He has been featured on talk shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live.

Maynard has trained in mixed martial arts (MMA). A documentary film, A Fighting Chance, focuses on his MMA efforts. His amateur debut fight was at Auburn Fight Night at the Auburn Covered Arena in Auburn, Alabama on April 25, 2009. He lost his first mixed martial arts fight to Bryan Fry on a unanimous 30–27 judges' decision. Maynard received the ESPN Espy Award for Best Athlete With A Disability in 2004. He attended the University of Georgia, but was forced to put his undergraduate education on hold due to the high demands of his motivational speaking career. He has modeled for clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch.^{[citation needed]} Kyle Maynard is also the owner of No Excuses Crossfit gym located in Suwanee, GA.

Mary Abigail Wambach (born June 2, 1980) is an American professional soccer player, coach and Olympic gold medalist. She played college soccer for the University of Florida, where she was a member of a national university championship team and was recognized as a three-time All-American. A five-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award, she has been a regular on the U.S. women's national team since 2003. Wambach currently stands as the second highest all-time goal scorer for the USA Women's National Soccer Team, after Mia Hamm; Hamm and Wambach are also No. 1 and No. 2 world-wide.

Wambach was born in Rochester, New York and raised in its suburb Pittsford, New York, the youngest of seven children of Pete and Judy Wambach. In her first youth soccer league, she was transferred from the girls' team to the boys' team after scoring twenty-seven goals in only three games. Wambach attended Our Lady of Mercy High School in Rochester, New York, where she lettered in soccer and basketball. Following her high school senior season, she was named to Parade magazine's high school All-America team, and the national Player of the Year by Umbro and the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA).