UEFA award: Lewandowski and Neuer nominated as "European Footballer of the Year"

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Manuel Neuer (l), Robert Lewandowski: Will the award go to Munich?

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Robert Lewandowski and Manuel Neuer can hope to be named "European Footballer of the Year".

The two professionals from Champions League winners FC Bayern Munich are, along with Kevin De Bruyne from Manchester City, among the three nominees on a jury for the award of the 2019/2020 Uefa player.

This was announced by the Continental Association.

The decisive factor was the vote of 80 coaches from the clubs that took part in the group stages of the Champions League and Europa League, as well as 55 journalists - one from each UEFA member association.

The prizes will be awarded on October 1st as part of the Champions League draw.

Lewandowski should have particularly good chances.

With 15 goals, the striker was the top scorer in the premier class.

Across all competitions, he scored 55 goals in 47 appearances for Bayern.

Goalkeeper Neuer showed an outstanding performance in the final of the Champions League against Paris.

De Bruyne is likely to be an outsider.

The Belgian was individually one of the strongest players of the past Premier League season.

Uefa awards are always about presentable success - and things don't look good for Manchester City.

Behind Lionel Messi and Neymar in shared fourth place, Thomas Müller came in sixth in the vote.

Thiago in eighth and Joshua Kimmich in ninth are also among the top ten from the Munich team that won the premier class.

The last time a professional from the men's Bundesliga was named "European Footballer of the Year" was in Franck Ribéry seven years ago.

Ex-Wolfsburg Harder can hope

In the women's field, too, a player was nominated for her performance for a Bundesliga club: Pernille Harder.

The Dane won the championship with VfL Wolfsburg and failed in the Champions League final at Olympique Lyon, and has since moved to Chelsea.

Harder was already named "European Footballer of the Year" in 2018, and last season she was the key player in attack at VfL.

Harder's competitors are the Englishwoman Lucy Bronze (last Lyon, now Manchester City) and the French world-class defender Wendie Renard (Lyon).

In addition to the end of the game, the best coaches were also announced.

In the men's category, the three candidates are all German: Hansi Flick from Bayern, Jürgen Klopp from Liverpool and RB Leipzig's Julian Nagelsmann.

Wolfsburg's Stephan Lerch is nominated for the women, as is the Spaniard Lluis Cortes (FC Barcelona) and the Frenchman Jean-Luc Vasseur (Lyon).

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