Top three nominees revealed for 2021/22 UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award

UEFA has today announced the names of the top three nominees for the 2021/22 UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award. The award winner will be announced at the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League group stage draw ceremony, which will take place on Thursday 25 August at the Haliç Congress Center in Istanbul.

On the same occasion, UEFA will also honour the coach who had the biggest impact during the 2021/22 season with the UEFA Men’s Coach of the Year award.

UEFA Men’s Player of the Year

For the men’s player award, an initial shortlist of 15 players was selected by the UEFA technical study group based on their performance during the 2021/22 season at both club and national team level. The top three nominees were voted for by a jury composed of coaches of the clubs which played in the group stages of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League. A group of journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) were also part of the jury.

Coaches and journalists were asked to select their top three players from the shortlist by allocating them five points, three points and one point respectively. 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 are, in alphabetical order:

Karim BENZEMA (France – Real Madrid CF)

Thibaut COURTOIS (Belgium – Real Madrid CF)

Kevin DE BRUYNE (Belgium – Manchester City FC)

The full list of the 15 players who received votes is available on UEFA.com.

UEFA Men’s Coach of the Year

For the men’s coach award, an initial shortlist of six coaches was provided by the UEFA technical study group. Similarly to the player’s award, the top three nominees were voted for by a jury composed of coaches of the clubs which played in the group stages of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League. A group of journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) were also part of the jury.

The three coaches who received the most points are, in alphabetical order:

Carlo ANCELOTTI (Italy – Real Madrid CF)

Josep GUARDIOLA (Spain – Manchester City FC)

Jürgen KLOPP (Germany – Liverpool FC)

The list of the six coaches who received votes is available on UEFA.com.

Note to media

Voting for the UEFA Women’s Player and Coach of the Year awards is in progress. The list of the top three nominees will be announced next week.