Jorginho was named the best footballer in Europe of the past season on Thursday evening. The midfielder of Chelsea and the national team of Italy was ahead of both N’Golo Kanté and Kevin De Bruyne in the election. The 24 national coaches of the past European Championship, the 80 trainers of the clubs that participated in the Champions League and the Europa League last season and 55 journalists were asked as part of a jury to provide a shortlist of three men. Jorginho received the most votes and is the successor of Robert Lewandowski, who a year ago UEFA Men’s Player of the Year was appointed.
Jorginho, 29, has had the most successful season of his career. The Italian Brazilian, good for 8 goals in 43 matches in all competitions, won his first Champions League ever with Chelsea at the expense of Manchester City. The midfielder was then part of the Italian selection that won the European Championship. Jorginho was also part of the Team of the Tournament, partly because of his sublime statistics in the field of ball conquest, duels won and kilometers covered.
?? He conquered Europe twice. Bravo, Jorginho – UEFA Men’s Player of the Year! ???????#UEFAawards | #UCLdraw | @ChelseaFC pic.twitter.com/7sBtw8A4wy
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) August 26, 2021
Thirty-year-old De Bruyne won both the league title and the EFL Cup with Manchester City. However, the Champions League final against Chelsea was lost and the Belgian was also injured after a collision with Antonio Rüdiger. This left him with a broken nose and a fracture of his eye socket. De Bruyne eventually only missed the first group match of the Red Devils, who won all group matches and eliminated defending champions Portugal in the round of 16. In the quarterfinals, later overall winner Italy was 1-2 too strong.
Kante, thirty years old, finished fourth in the Premier League with Chelsea and reached the final battle of both the FA Cup and the Champions League. In the final of England’s most important cup tournament, Leicester City was too strong 1-0, but the Champions League was a prey for the Blues, who defeated Manchester City 0-1. At the European Championship, Kanté and France were unable to fulfill the favorite role. The world champion drew in the group stage against Hungary (1-1) and Portugal (2-2) and only won against Germany (1-0). In the eighth finals, Switzerland was too strong for after penalties lesson Bleus
Lionel Messi (formerly Barcelona, now Paris Saint-Germain and Argentina), Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich and Poland), Gianluigi Donnarumma (formerly AC Milan, now Paris Saint-Germain and Italy), Kylian Mbappé (Paris Saint-Germain and France) , Raheem Sterling (Manchester City and England), Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus and Portugal) and Erling Braut Haaland (Borussia Dortmund and Norway) complete the top ten. The seven received too few votes to be part of the shortlist.