Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema and Thibaut Courtois and Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne are the three finalists for the 2021/2022 Player of the Year awards, UEFA, the award-giving organization, announced this Friday. In the same statement, they unveil the last three contenders for the Coach of the Year award: Carlo Ancelotti (Real Madrid), Pep Guardiola (Manchester City) and Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool).
The winners of the awards, as well as the best player and best coach, will be announced next Thursday, August 25 at the draw ceremony for the group stage of the next Champions League in Istanbul, the city that will host the final of the competition on August 10 June 2023 at Ataturk Stadium.
Karim Benzema, top favorite for both this award and the Ballon d’Or, was already named the best player in the Champions League last season. Courtois won Paris final MVP against Liverpool.
To present the Player of the Year award, UEFA’s technical study group has drawn up a list of 15 candidates based on their performance over the past season, taking into account what they have accomplished with their clubs and national teams. A jury consisting of the coaches of the teams that played in the group stages of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League last year, as well as several journalists selected by European Sports Media, then evaluated the candidates. They gave their three favorites five, three and one point. Coaches could not vote for their own players. Benzema, Courtois and De Bruyne received the most votes, although UEFA will not announce the order until August 25. The next 12 classified were the following:
4. Robert Lewandowski (54 points)
5. Luke Modric (52)
6. Sadio Mane (51)
7. Mohammed Salah (46)
8. Kylian Mbappe (25)
9. Vinicius (21)
10. Virgil Van Dijk (19)
11. Bernardo Silva (7)
12. Filip Kostic (7)
13.Lorenzo Pellegrini (5)
14. Trent Alexander Arnold (2)
15. Fabino (1)
For the Coach of the Year award, the panel of experts selected a first list of six coaches, among whom the same members of the Football Players’ Awards jury voted. In addition to the three finalists (Ancelotti, Guardiola and Klopp), the following were chosen most often:
4 Oliver Glasner (Eintracht Frankfurt, 75 points)
5 Unai Emery (Villarreal, 74)
6. Jose Mourinho (Rome, 51)
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