Lionel Messi, Franck Ribery and Cristiano Ronaldo have been shortlisted for the 2012/13 Uefa Best Player in Europe Award, with the winner to be announced on the 29th of August.
Messi won the Spanish La Liga title with Barcelona last season, as well as notching up his fourth successive FIFA Ballon d”Or, and ended the season with a superlative haul of 46 league goals.
Frenchman Ribery helped treble-winning Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga title, German Cup defeat rivals Borrusia Dortmund in the Uefa Champions League final at Wembley.
Ronaldo, meanwhile, top-scored in the 2012/13 Uefa Champions League with 12 goals for Real Madrid, completing the top three players in Europe.
Born out of the desire to recreate the European Footballer of the Year Award (also known as Ballon d’Or) after it was merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year Award in 2010, Uefa have revealed the players who finished fourth to tenth and, the others goes thus:
Fourth: Robert Lewandowski (Poland, Borussia Dortmund),
Fifth: Arjen Robben (Netherlands, Bayern Munich),
Sixth: Thomas Muller (Germany, Bayern Munich),
Seventh: Gareth Bale (Wales, Tottenham Hotspur),
Eighth: Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany, Bayern Munich),
Ninth: Zlatan Ibrahimovich (Sweden, Paris St-Germain),
Tenth: Robin van Persie (Netherlands, Manchester United).
The award is voted by a jury of journalists from each of UEFA’s member associations.
I vote for Cristiano Ronaldo in Real Madrid