Cristiano Ronaldo has won the UEFA Best Player in Europe for 2015/16 season. He won the title and defeated Gareth Bale and Antonie Griezmann to bag the trophy. They were also in the competition for the same.
The officials made this formal announcement in Monaco on Thursday evening. It came out just after the Champions League draw concluded. And it went viral on Twitter.
Cristiano Ronaldo Wins UEFA Best Player in Europe
The trio was selected and shortlisted on the basis of the votes received from the journalists from the UEFA’s 55 member associations. These three football players turned out to be ahead of Barcelona’s duo Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi, and Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. These all made the final six.
The title for the last season, i.e., 2014/15 went to Lionel Messi. However, for this year, the prize has been won by Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo. RMA has won Champions League two times in the last three seasons. Moreover, Ronaldo will now captain the European champions Portugal.
Bale and Ronaldo were in the same team of the Spanish capital. Bale has captained Wales and took it to to the semi-final stage of Euro 2016.
On the other hand, Griezmann was one of the stars of recently concluded Euro 2016. He was the teammate and part of Atletico Madrid who turned out to be the runner-up in the Euro 2016 finals.
This award came into existence when UEFA merged the original European Footballer of the Year honor (the Ballon d’Or) with the World Player award of FIFA.
In the women front, Ada Hegerberg of Lyon bagged it.