Federico Chiesa has won the Pallone Azzurro award as the best Italy player of 2021 after helping the Nazionale to UEFA EURO 2020 glory.
Supporters were given a shortlist and over 8,000 votes came in to the official Italian Football Federation (FIGC) website from December 14 to 30.
The winner is Juventus winger Chiesa with 46 per cent of the vote, beating Inter midfielder Nicolรฒ Barella on 20 per cent and Roma full-back Leonardo Spinazzola with 14 per cent.
Chiesa is 24 years old and already has 37 senior caps for Italy, scoring four goals and providing seven assists.
He found the net twice during EURO 2020, against Austria in the Round of 16 and Spain in the semi-final.
Spinazzola has not played since tearing his Achilles tendon during the EURO 2020 quarter-final against Belgium and had until then been arguably the best player in the tournament.
The other names on the shortlist were Gianluigi Donnarumma and Lorenzo Insigne.
There was also a vote for the best womenโs player, which went to Cristiana Girelli.
๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ฒ๐๐ฎ is the winner of the ๐๐๐ก๐ก๐ค๐ฃ๐ ๐ผ๐ฏ๐ฏ๐ช๐ง๐ง๐ค ๐ต
He received 46% of the votes
See the complete results ๐ https://t.co/cNRETSejrE#PalloneAzzurro#Azzurri #VivoAzzurro pic.twitter.com/psq2sTjZJxโ Italy โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ (@Azzurri_En) December 30, 2021
Barella should have won it!
Why does this appear on Inter News? Chiesa’s Italian, not Argentine.
well deserved.
Absolutely deserved!
To be fair, he was very good but so was Spina. For me, it should have been Spina. He was absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, Spina is a victim of the saying “out of sight, out of mind”. However, well done all the same to Federico Chiesa. I hope Gli Azzurri turn it around for us in March so we can see them at the WC 2022 in Qatar.