Bukayo Saka finished in the top-10 for the 2021 Kopa Trophy, an u21 award selected by former winners of the Ballon d’Or.
Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka finished sixth in the Kopa Trophy rankings, as confirmed by France Football on Tuesday.
The award is exclusively voted on by winners of the Ballon d’Or, each of whom gets three votes.
Their first choice gets five points, their second choice gets three points, and their third choice gets one point.
Saka ended up finishing in sixth place, with eight points. Pedri was the overwhelming winner with 89, way ahead of Jude Bellingham in second with 39.
It’s yet another young footballer award where Saka has reached the final stages of the voting. He also made the top-20 for the Golden Boy award, which was announced earlier this month.
That award is run by Tuttosport, and determined by the votes of 40 journalists across Europe.
In that case, each journalist gives their top-five nominations, with their number one pick receiving 10 points, two receiving seven, three receiving five, four receiving three, and five receiving one point.
Once again, Pedri was the convincing winner with 318 points, well ahead of Jude Bellingham (119) in second place. Only four journalists placed Pedri outside of their top three.
When Tuttosport initially announced their 100-strong longlist for the Golden Boy award this year, Arsenal had four players involved:
Balogun dropped off the list when it was cut to 60 players, and Martinelli dropped off after 40, so Saka and Saliba were the two remaining in the final 20.
The public vote was kind to Saka, putting him fourth in the overall rankings and only 0.1% behind third, but the official journalist vote left him outside of the top five.
Saka obviously had plenty of starring performances with Arsenal, winning the club Player of the Season award last campaign.