UEFA Name Mohamed Salah Alongside Real Madrid and Juventus Stars on Player of the Year Shortlist

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has been nominated for the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year Award alongside Real Madrid’s Luka Modric and Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo, it was announced on Monday. 

The trio pipped the likes of Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann, Lionel Messi, World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe and Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne to the three-man shortlist. 

80 coaches of the clubs which participated in the group stages of the 2017/18 Champions League and Europa League, alongside 55 journalists selected by the European sport media group whittled down the final three from 10 names, which also included Raphael Varane, Edin Hazard and Sergio Ramos. 

According to Uefa’s ​official website, those selected were requested to select a shortlist of three players by allocating respectively five points, three points and one point to each of them – although you could not vote for a player in your own team. 

From this process, Salah, Modric and Ronaldo were the three who amassed the most points, with the outright winner to be announced in Monaco on August 30 alongside the draw for this year’s Champions League group stage. 

From the remaining seven, Griezmann came out on top with 72 points – 17 more than that of fellow ​La Liga star Messi and 29 better off than ​Premier League winner De Bruyne. 

Ramos brought up the rear of the field with 12 points, with ​Chelsea’s Hazard three better off and fellow ​Real Madrid centre back Varane finishing up with 28 points. 

For the women’s award, the shortlist of three players was selected by a jury composed of the coaches of the 12 highest-ranked teams in the latest UEFA women’s national team rankings, together with those from the eight clubs which participated in the quarter-finals of the 2017/18 Women’s Champions League and 20 journalists. 

Olympique Lyonnais duo Amandine Henry and Ada Hegerberg reached the final three, as did VfL Wolfsburg striker Pernille Harder.