Manuel Neuer kept a clean sheet against Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as he helped Germany to a fourth World Cup title, and he now aims to beat the two stars for the Fifa Ballon d'Or award as well on Monday.
Ronaldo (Portugal, Real Madrid) and Messi (Argentina, Barcelona) have won football's most prestigious individual prize in the past six years and have continued to score freely in 2014.
But Neuer has been on the forefront of redefining the role of a goalkeeper in the modern game, most notably at the World Cup in Brazil but also at his club Bayern Munich where he has let in a league-record four goals in the first half of the current season.
Neuer, 28, spoke of "a huge honour for me" when the final shortlist was announced by Fifa in December. "There's no guarantee a goalkeeper will ever be nominated."
The German is the first goalkeeper to make the final three of the award in its current form since 2010. No goalkeeper was named World Footballer in previous years, with German Oliver Kahn second in 2002. Soviet legend Lev Yashin was the only goalkeeper to win the Ballon d'Or award, more than 50 years ago in 1963.
"To a very large extent, the credit has to go to my teams. We had a magnificent 2014 with FC Bayern and Germany and won trophies," he said.
Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said: "I'm really delighted for Manuel Neuer. He put in some outstanding performances at the World Cup, and also in the Champions League and Bundesliga, and he's won things."
Neuer won a league and cup double for Munich on top of the World Cup, where Germany opened 4-0 over Ronaldo's Portugal and won the final 1-0 against Messi's Argentina.
That was the same amount of trophies than Ronaldo (Champions League, Spanish cup, European Super Cup while Real's Club World Cup title came after the shortlist announcement).
Messi won no titles on the pitch in 2014 but at least the Golden Ball award as best outfield player in Brazil.
Neuer won the Golden Glove in Brazil - partly for acting like an outfield player himself as the prime example of "a new era of goalkeeping in modern football," according a report from Fifa's Technical Study Group.
"The modern goalkeeper acts like an additional outfield player and is the starting point of many attacking movements with precise short or long passes out of defence. He reads the game well and must be ready for any intervention outside the penalty area to intercept an opponent's attack," the report said.
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