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Barcelona striker Lionel Messi is not in the running for the UEFA Best Player in Europe award. The three nominations are in fact Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo and his team mate Gareth Bale, while Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann make up the final list.
In fact Messi was not even placed fourth in the long list of 10 candidates as Uruguayan Luis Suarez bumped him down to fifth place. Ronaldo is favourite for the coveted award, having led Real Madrid to their 11th Champions League crown in the season just gone by. Ronaldo went on then to win Euro 2016 with Portugal after they seen off France in the final.
Bale, who also won the Champions League in the season just gone inspired Wales to the semi finals of Euro 2016 only to be knocked out by the eventual winners, Portugal.
French striker Antoine Griezmann makes up the third nomination. Although he lost the Champions League Final with Atletico he was in excellent form for France in the Euro's and fully deserves to be in the top three considering he was top scorer at the tournament.
The award which is voted by journalists from UEFA's member nations was won by Messi last year. Other player that made up the list included Italy's Gianluigi Buffon, German trio Manuel Neuer, Toni Kroos and Thomas Muller, while Portugal centre back Pepe was also nominated.
The winner of the award will be announced on the 25th of August, which incidentally is the day of the draw for the Champions League group stage.
Written by Anthony Redmond
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