2022/23 UEFA Player Of The Year Award: All You Need To Know
Just recently, UEFA (Union of European Football Associations), announced the names of the top three nominees for the 2022–23 UEFA Men’s Player of the Year awards. The award winner will be announced at the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League group stage draw ceremony, which will take place on Thursday, August 31 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
Who Are The three Nominees?
The top three contenders for the UEFA Men’s Player of the year award 2022–23, as published by UEFA, are as follows:
- Lionel Messi (Inter Miami, Argentina)
- Kevin De Bruyne ( Manchester City, Belgium )
- Erling Haaland ( Manchester City, Norway )
basis of selection
UEFA has clarified that both the performance at the club level and the national level were taken into consideration while finalizing and shortlisting the said players. The voting process is taken by the coaches who took part in the European club-level competition and a group of hand-picked journalists by the European Sports Media.
In the end, the award is given to the player who manages to amass the most votes from the coaches and journalists.
top ten Nominees For UEFA Men’s Award
Even though the winner will be announced on Thursday, August 31, UEFA has already ranked the rest of the top ten players. They are:
- Lionel Messi (Inter Miami, Argentina)
- Kevin De Bruyne ( Manchester City, Belgium )
- Erling Haaland (Manchester City, Norway )
- İlkay Gündoğan (Germany and Barcelona) – 129 points
- Rodri Hernández (Spain and Manchester City)– 110 points
- Kylian Mbappé (Francand & Paris) – 82 points
- Luka Modric (Croatia and Real Madrid) – 33 points
- Marcelo Brozovi (Croatia and Al Nassr) – 20 points
- Declan Rice (England & Arsenal) – 14 points
- Alexis Mac Allister (Argentina and Liverpool) – 12 points
History of the award
The UEFA Men’s Player of the Year Award is an association football award given to the footballer playing for a men’s football club in Europe who is considered the best in the previous season of both club and national team competition.
Cristiano Ronaldo of the Portugal national team is the player with the most UEFA Player of the Year awards, winning the award on three occasions: 2013/14, 2015/16, and 2016/17.
Leo Messi has won the award twice and now has an opportunity to catch Cristiano at first. Moreover, Leo Messi is the only non-European player to claim the award.
Conclusion
The top three nominees for this year are all players who have recorded outstanding feats. To put it into context, Lionel Messi ended up winning the FIFA World Cup, Erling Haland (along with Manchester City) won the treble, and recently the UEFA Super Cup.
And last but not least, Kevin De Bruyne (also with Manchester City) also recorded the best rating by a Premier League player, averaging 3.4 goal-scoring chances per 90 minutes of game time.
For now, we can’t do anything but await the final result from the members of the voting committee. Thanks for reading
