The shortlist for the European Player of the Year award by UEFA has been announced: Messi, Haaland and Kevin Debruyne

Two Manchester City players and Lionel Messi are well known as the top three contenders for the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award 2022/23.

Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland, the creative and goal-scoring machines were the formula behind Man City’s treble-winning season to take on Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi – the GOAT

The owner of the prize will be announced at the draw for the group stage of the Champions League 2023-2024 taking place on August 31 in Monaco.

At the same time, the winner of the Men’s Coach of the Year award for the 2022-2023 season will be announced with the final three candidates being Pep Guardiola of Man City and two Italian coaches: Simone Inzaghi and Luciano Spalletti of Inter Milan and Napoli.

For both the player and coach awards, a shortlist of players has been selected by the UEFA technical research team based on performances during the 2022-2023 season at both level. club level and national team.

That team includes: Coaches of clubs that have played in the group stages of the Champions League 2022 – 2023, Europa League and Europa Conference League, along with the coaches of UEFA men’s national teams afterwards. select the top three influencers and performances of the past season. A group of journalists selected by European Sports Media (ESM) were also on the jury.

Once the top three were identified, Coaches and journalists were then asked to rank those three on the shortlist by allocating them five points, three points and one point respectively.