Winner ahead of Vlahović & Co.
There is still a week to go before the start of the new Serie A season, which sees Italy’s top division side chasing reigning champions AC Milan with Rafael Leão, last season’s best player. This title is awarded to the 23-year-old attacking player after a vote by the Transfermarkt community.
Leão won the election with 22.8 percent of the votes cast, succeeding previous award winner Romelu Lukaku. A year earlier, Ciro Immobile had secured the trophy. In total, over 1.2 million votes were cast in the 2021/22 Player of the Season election.
Behind the Portuguese, Dušan Vlahović (Fiorentina/Juventus; 17.1 percent) and Leão’s teammate Theo Hernández (12.5 percent) finished on the podium. Milan professional Mike Maignan (11.6 percent) and Inter’s Lautaro Martínez (7.6 percent) complete the top 5 in the overall selection. Vice Vlahović switched from Fiorentina to Juventus in early 2022 for 81.6 million euros.
Voted by TM users: winners of recent years with Mbappé, Naldo & Messi
Leão with an impressive increase in market value since 2019 – thanks via Instagram
Champion Leão, who was signed from Lille in 2019 for €29.5m and has since almost quintupled his market value (€15m at the time) since then, justified first place in the TM vote with eleven goals and ten assists in 34 league games. With this result, the right-footer and nine-time Portuguese international is one of the top 10 scorers of the past season. “Thank you for this gift,” Leão says happily via Instagram about his TM award.
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