UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award
Rank Player First round Final round Club
1 Lionel Messi - 49 Barcelona
2 Luis Suárez - 3 Barcelona
3 Cristiano Ronaldo - 2 Real Madrid
4 Gianluigi Buffon 24 - Juventus
5 Neymar 23 - Barcelona
6 Eden Hazard 21 - Chelsea
7 Andrea Pirlo 12 - Juventus
8 Arturo Vidal 11 - Juventus
9 Carlos Tevez 8 - Juventus
10 Paul Pogba 5 - Juventus
Award history -- Finalists
The UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award (previously known as the UEFA Best Player in Europe Award) is an association football award given to the footballer playing for a football club in Europe that is considered the best in the previous season of both club and national team competition. The award, created in 2011 by UEFA in partnership with European Sports Media (ESM) group, was initially aimed at reviving the European Footballer of the Year Award (Ballon d'Or), which was merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year Award in 2010 to become the FIFA Ballon d'Or. It also replaced the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year award. Cristiano Ronaldo is the only player to win the award three times as well as twice in a row. Since its inception, the award has been won by Lionel Messi (2011, 2015), Andrés Iniesta (2012), Franck Ribéry (2013), Cristiano Ronaldo (2014, 2016, 2017), Luka Modrić (2018) and Virgil van Dijk (2019). Female players are awarded the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award, introduced in 2013.