Lionel Messi has been nominated for UEFA's Player of the Year award

Lionel Messi has been nominated for UEFA's Player of the Year award

Leo Messi marcó el 3-0 del Barça ante el Liverpool con un estratosférico lanzamiento de falta. Desde 30 metros el argentino colocó su disparo por toda la escuadra de Alisson / | MEDIAPRO

The other two challengers to the Argentine superstar are Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool's Van Dijk

UEFA have this Thursday announced the nominees for their Player of the Year award, The awards will be handed out at the Champions League Group Stage draw on the 29th August.

For the men's award. the three nominees came after a judging panel of 80 coaches involved in European competitions last year alongside 55 journalists from each of the 55 federations which make up UEFA. 

They are each asked to produce a list of three players (5pts, 3pts and 1pt) and the final result is then added up to give a shortlist of three.

The three players would the highest number of votes were Lionel Messi (Argentina - FC Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal - Juventus) and Virgil Van Dijk (Holland - Liverpool FC).

Whilst those three will fight for the prize, here are the seven other players - and points received - which round off the top ten: 4 Alisson Becker (Bra/Liverpool) 57 points, 5 Sadio Mané (Sen/Liverpool) 51 points, 6 Mohamed Salah (Egy/Liverpool) 49 points, 7 Eden Hazard (Bel/Chelsea-Real Madrid) - 38 points, 8 Matthijs de Ligt (Hol/Ajax-Juventus) 27 points, 8 Frenkie de Jong (Hol/Ajax-Barcelona) 27 points, 10 Raheem Sterling (Eng/Manchester City) 12 points.

Topics with the letter