The reigning UEFA Footballer of the year had a season to forget
The UEFA Men's Player of the Year is generally given to the best footballer playing for a club in Europe, considering the performance in both club and national teams for the previous year. It was previously known as the UEFA Best Player in Europe and replaced the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year Award.
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The Award was introduced in 2011 and since its inception, has been awarded to some of the top players of our times. Cristiano Ronaldo, incidentally, has won it a record 3 times, with Messi following close behind with 2. However, this season, the tables have turned dramatically.
Ronaldo's move to Italy and a subsequent average season, by his standards, means that Lionel Messi is currently the front runner for the award. However, Messi does have competition, most notably from Mbappe and Virgil van Dijk who has both been stellar this season too.
In the build-up to the awards, Messi has pushed away all the four players who finished ahead of him last season - Luka Modric, who finished first, Ronaldo, Salah and Griezmann. The Argentinean remains the favourite to win his third UEFA Men's Player of the Year this season, thanks to a fantastic overall performance in the field. Messi has scored 48 goals and registered 16 assists from 46 games for Barcelona. He is most likely to win the La Liga Golden Boot as well as the European Golden Shoe as well. None of the competition, so far, comes close to him in this regard.
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About the author
Deepungsu Pandit
Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written over 8500 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.
Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.
Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.
Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.
Despite believing in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to create an iconic rivalry, Deepungsu reckons no one can match the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo. He spends his leisure time writing about life on his blog, reading books, and playing the guitar.
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