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#3 UEFA Men's Player of the Year 2019
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.
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.
