Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for and captains both Major League Soccer club Inter Miami and the Argentina national team, Lionel Messi, has been nominated for the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year 2022/23 award.
Other nominees are:
Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium & Manchester City)
Erling Haaland (Norway & Manchester City)
Lionel Messi (Argentina & Paris, Inter Miami)
The award winner will be announced at the 2023/24 UEFA Champions League group stage draw ceremony, which will take place on Thursday, 31 August at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
The initial shortlist of players was selected by the UEFA technical study group based on their performance during the 2022/23 season at both club and national team level.
The top three nominees were then voted for by a jury composed of the coaches of the clubs which played in the group stages of the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League, together with the coaches of the men’s national teams of UEFA’s member associations. 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 journalists. The coaches were not allowed to vote for players from their own team.
The rest of the players who received votes are:
- İlkay Gündoğan (Germany & Manchester City, now at Barcelona) – 129 points
- Rodri (Spain & Manchester City) – 110 points
- Kylian Mbappé (France & Paris) – 82 points
- Luka Modrić (Croatia & Real Madrid) – 33 points
- Marcelo Brozović (Croatia & Inter, now at Al Nassr) – 20 points
- Declan Rice (England & West Ham, now at Arsenal) – 14 points
- Alexis Mac Allister (Argentina & Brighton, now at Liverpool) – 12 points
- Jesús Navas (Spain & Sevilla) – 6 points
