Balague: Ousmane Dembele — just. It has been great to see his evolution and the jump that the Paris St-Germain forward has made this season.
Laurens: There are other contenders, such as Raphinha, but I’m going for Ousmane Dembele. His transformation this season has been mind-blowing – it looked like he would be out but he has turned it around.
For everything he has done, for how he transformed the perception we all had on him, he is a great guy to have in the dressing room. He used to play on PlayStation until 3am, then fall asleep and wake up late. Was late at training and people didn’t like it. It was not that disicipline that you need to have when you are a professional player with his qualities to make it to a higher level.
At 27 he finally got there. He got married, put a lot of discipline in his own life. And Luis Enrique has been brilliant to him by making him realise that you have to be the leader and leaders behave in a certain way, on and off the pitch.
Dembele has scored eight goals, five with his right foot and three with his left, as well as making four assists in 1073 minutes of Champions League football this season.
Rzouki: Difficult – Lamine Yamal and Ousmane Dembele deserve mentions but I think I’ll give it to PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
The Paris St-Germain goalkeeper has made some crucial saves during the French side’s run to the final and has kept five clean sheets in this season’s tournament, with only Inter’s Yann Sommer (seven) and Arsenal’s David Raya (six) keeping more.
Hitzlsperger: Normally you would pick one from the finalists but I think Raphinha, because he was absolutely brilliant for Barcelona.
If it has to be a PSG player then I like Achraf Hakimi, I’ve been so impressed with him.
It is difficult but I would probably end up picking Raphinha — obviously there are his record assists for Barca but also because when I’ve watched him, he has been outstanding overall.
Nicky Bandini, Champions League Match of the Day pundit: It’s one of two from that Barcelona team. I know everybody wants it to be Yamal but sometimes numbers come into it, and Raphinha‘s numbers are stupid in this tournament.
Joint top-scorer, top assists provider. And even in that ridiculous semi-final against Inter, when we’re all going wild for the things Yamal does, it was Raphinha who again scores.
Despite Barcelona losing to Inter Milan at the semi-final stage, Raphinha enjoyed a remarkable campaign in which the Brazilian scored 13 goals and created nine assists in 14 games.
Choose your player of the tournament from our pundits’ shortlist below.
