Kante, De Bruyne and Jorginho on for UEFA best player gong

Kevin De Bruyne, Jorginho and N’Golo Kanté have made the final shortlist of the UEFA player of the year award, with coaches Josep Guardiola (Manchester City), Roberto Mancini (Italy) and Thomas Tuchel (Chelsea) making the final list for the managers’ gong.

Also shortlisted by European football-governing body UEFA on Thursday are the women’s awards, with Barcelona players dominating the women’s player of the year shortlist.

Jennifer Hermoso, Lieke Martens and Alexia Putellas will contest the players’ crown while Lluís Cortés (FC Barcelona), Peter Gerhardsson (Swedish women’s national team) and Emma Hayes (Chelsea FC Women) will battle to be awarded the women’s coach of the year.

The award winners will be announced at the 2021/22 UEFA Champions’ League group stage draw ceremony, which will take place on 26th August in Istanbul, Turkey.

Shortlisting criteria

For the men’s player and coach’s award, the shortlist of three players was selected by a jury of 24 coaches of the national teams which participated in this summer’s UEFA EURO 2020, together with 80 coaches of the clubs which played in the group stages of the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

Fifty-five journalists from each of UEFA’s 55 member associations, selected by the European Sports Media group, were also part of the jury.

For the women’s player and coach’s award, the shortlist of three players was selected by a jury composed of the coaches of the clubs which participated in the Round of 16 of the 2020/21 UEFA Women’s Champions League, together with the coaches of the 12 highest-ranked teams in the latest UEFA women’s national team ranking.

Twenty journalists specializing in women’s football and selected by the ESM group were also part of the jury.

The coaches and journalists were requested to select a shortlist of three players by allocating respectively five points, three points and one point to each of them. The final result was based on the total number of votes cast by the coaches and the journalists.

Coaches were not allowed to vote for players from their own team.

The UEFA Player of the Year Awards complement the positional awards, which will crown the best men’s and women’s goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward of the 2020/21 club competition season, and which will also be announced during the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League group stage draw ceremony.