Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo and PSG’s latest signing, Lionel Messi (as a Barcelona player) were excluded as UEFA revealed the names of the final nominees for the 2020/21 UEFA Player of the Year Awards.
The award winners will be announced at the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League group stage draw ceremony, which will take place on Thursday 26 August at the Haliç Congress Center in Istanbul, Turkey.
On the same day, UEFA will also award coaches who have had the biggest impact over the previous season with the UEFA Coach of the Year Awards for both male and female coaches.
For the men’s player award, the shortlist of three players was selected by a jury composed of 24 coaches of the national teams which participated in this summer’s UEFA EURO 2020, together with 80 coaches of the clubs which played in the group stages of the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. Fifty-five journalists from each of UEFA’s 55 member associations, selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) group, were also part of the jury.
The coaches and journalists were requested to select a shortlist of three players by allocating respectively five points, three points, and one point to each of them. The final result was based on the total number of votes cast by the coaches and the journalists. The coaches were not allowed to vote for players from their own team.
The three players who received the most points overall following the conclusion of the voting, in alphabetical order, are:
Kevin DE BRUYNE (Belgium – Manchester City FC)
JORGINHO (Italy – Chelsea FC)
N’Golo KANTÉ (France – Chelsea FC)
The list of players who made up the rest of the top ten is available on UEFA.com.