Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku has been crowned the Europa League player of the season for the 2019-2020 season for the first time in his career, and for the second consecutive year for a Belgian footballer.
His countryman Eden Hazard won the award after the 2018-2019 season in which he helped Chelsea to win the Europa League title before he left the club to join Real Madrid.
In the case of Romelu Lukaku, he could not help Inter Milan which he joined last summer to win the trophy but he was able to push the team to the finals of the competition. Unfortunately, he and his team lost the title to Sevilla.
However, his personal performance during the competition was far too much to be ignored, hence, the juries of the award voted the 27-year-old Belgium international as the winner of this year’s edition of the award.
Lukaku joined Inter Milan’s Europa League campaign in the knock out stage of the competition. From that point, he didn’t miss any of the 6 matches the club played in the competition including the final. In the six matches, he scored 7 goals and provided two assists.
Lukaku got 270 points to win the award ahead of Sporting CP/Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes who got 128 points, while Sevilla’s Éver Banega got 118 points to take the third position.
Romelu Lukaku praises Antonio Conte
Romelu Lukaku had it very rough at Manchester United after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took over from Jose Mourinho. Instead of banking on the firepower of Lukaku, Solskjaer preferred to use Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial ahead of the Belgian. Hence, he had to look for another club that would appreciate his ability.
Antonio Conte, the manager of Inter Milan then showed interest in him last summer and brought him to Italy where he has been having the best time of his football career and now winning the Europa League player of the year.
“I want to thank god for putting me in this position. My mom and my brother for the unconditional love and support. My agent for being more than a friend and setting new targets all the time”, Lukaku wrote on his Instagram page.
“Antonio Conte and your staff thank you for believing in me and turning me into the player I am today. I owe you guys a lot. Most importantly, I want to thank my teammates because you guys are the reason why I am here today standing with this trophy. I hope we can fight harder this year to win something on the collective side because that’s the most important thing.
“To the inter fans thank you and I love you guys. Since day 1 the love that you guys have shown me means so much to me and my family. I’m honored to represent this football club. I hope we can celebrate a goal together soon in san Siro.”
Including the seven goals Romelu Lukaku scored in Europa League last season, he scored a total of 34 goals in all competitions for Inter Milan. This equaled the number of goals Brazilian football legend Ronaldo de Lima scored for Inter in his first season at the club in the 1997-1998 season.
Lukaku is expected to do more for Inter Milan now that he will compete with the best in world football in this season UEFA Champions League. Inter’s fans would hope his last season’s form continues this season.
Below are the top ten players of the 2019/20 UEFA Europa League
1 Romelu Lukaku (Inter) – 270 points
2 Bruno Fernandes (Sporting CP/Manchester United) – 128 points
3 Éver Banega (Sevilla) – 118 points
4 Luuk de Jong (Sevilla) – 64 points
5 Jesús Navas (Sevilla) – 59 points
6 Lucas Ocampos (Sevilla) – 39 points
7 Kai Havertz (Leverkusen) – 17 points
8 Diego Carlos (Sevilla) – 9 points
9 Adama Traoré (Wolves) – 8 points
10 Jules Koundé (Sevilla) – 7 points
