The Best: Ronaldo, Lewandowski, Messi up for men's player of year

FIFA has announced Robert Lewandowski, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the finalists for 2020’s The Best Men’s Player award, while Lucy Bronze, Pernille Harder and Wendie Renard have been confirmed as the three footballers in the running for Best Women's Player.

Lewandowski tipped to beat Ronaldo, Messi to Best Men's Player

Poland striker Lewandowski is the favourite to scoop the men’s accolade after scoring 55 goals in all competitions for Bayern Munich last season, as the Bavarians completed a Bundesliga, German Cup and Champions League treble.

Meanwhile, the fight between Manchester City and England’s Bronze, Chelsea and Denmark’s Harder and Lyon and France’s Renard promises to be a very tight one.

The Best FIFA Football Awards: nine prizes up for grabs

The winners will be announced on 17 December at The Best FIFA Football Awards, which will be a virtual gala broadcast from FIFA headquarters in Zurich. A total of nine prizes will be handed out at the event, which stands alone as the game's major individual awards ceremony in 2020, given that this year's Ballon d’Or was cancelled.

In addition to Best Men’s Player and Best Women’s Player, the awards to be handed out are: The Best FIFA Men’s Coach, The Best FIFA Women’s Coach, The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper, The Best FIFA Women’s Goalkeeper, the FIFA Puskás Award, the FIFA Fan Award and the FIFA Fair Play Award.

The 2020 FIFA FIFPRO Men's World 11, whose 55 nominees were announced on Thursday, will also be revealed.

Bayern's Flick and Neuer also expected to claim prizes

Leeds’ Marcelo Bielsa, Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp and Bayern’s Hansi Flick are the three bosses in contention for Best Men’s Coach, with Flick seemingly best-placed to claim the award. The trio up for Best Women’s Coach are Emma Hayes (Chelsea), Jean Luc Vasseur (Lyon) and Sarina Wiegman (Netherlands).

Meanwhile, a Bayern representative is also the favourite to win Best Men’s Goalkeeper, with Germany stopper Manuel Neuer tipped to beat out fellow nominees Alisson Becker (Liverpool and Brazil) and Jan Oblak (Atlético Madrid and Slovenia).

Sarah Bouhaddi (Lyon and France), Christiane Endler (Paris Saint-Germain and Chile) and Alissa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars and the United States) are the three finalists for Best Women’s Goalkeeper.

De Arrascaeta, Son and Suárez the nominees for Puskás Award

Finally, world football’s governing body has also confirmed that Giorgian de Arrascaeta (Flamengo), Son Heung-min (Tottenham) and Luis Suárez (Barcelona/Atlético Madrid) have made the final three in the race for the Puskás Award, which is given to the scorer of the goal of the year.

FIFA Puskás Award: