UEFA Player of the Year award is for players in Europe, irrespective of nationality who have been judged in regard to their performances over the whole season in all competitions – both domestically and internationally – (at either club, or national team level).
The 2018/2019 winner will be named – along with the UEFA Women’s Player of the Year and UEFA Champions League positional award winners – during the group stage draw in Monaco on Thursday 29 August.
In view of 2018/2019, Lionel Messi (Barcelona/Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus/Portugal) and Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool/Netherlands) have been nominated as the top three finalists in men category.
National Daily learnt that the shortlist of the above three players was selected by a jury comprising of the 80 coaches of the clubs that participated in the group stages of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League (32) and UEFA Europa League (48), along with 55 journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) group, one from each of UEFA’s member associations.
Meanwhile, an alleged online leak credited to Reddit emerged on Sunday revealing Messi leading the pole, but there are strong reasons why Cristiano Ronaldo may still go ahead to win the award ahead of Lionel Messi and Virgil van Dijk despite the alleged above alleged online leakage due to his edge.
From National Daily findings, Ronaldo who was central to Juventus squad guided the Old Ladies to defend their Serie A title where he averaged 127minutes per goal and emerged as the club’s top scorer with 27 goals during the season under review. He was similarly pivotal to their shot at the UEFA Champions League where they were eliminated by Ajax at the quarter-finals. The success story of Juventus cannot be told without Ronaldo’s remarkable contribution.
Pertinently, Cristiano Ronaldo unlike Messi and Virgil van Dijk was not only outstanding in his club level, but he extended his football exploits domestically where he guided Portugal to their pioneer UEFA Nations League.
Ronaldo has sufficiently satisfied the criteria for the UEFA Player of the Year Award with his football brilliance in both club and national levels far above his other final nominees.
The rest top ten and their points:
4. Alisson Becker (Liverpool & Brazil) – 57 points
5. Sadio Mané (Liverpool & Senegal) – 51 points
6. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool & Egypt) – 49 points
7. Eden Hazard (Chelsea/Real Madrid & Belgium) – 38 points
8. Matthijs de Ligt (Ajax/Juventus & Netherlands) – 27 points
9. Frenkie de Jong (Ajax/Barcelona & Netherlands) – 27 points
10. Raheem Sterling (Manchester City & England) – 12 points