The Player of the Tournament award is always an interesting market and the recipient of the award seems to split opinion virtually every time. First awarded at Euro 1996 the award has been claimed by some absolute legends of European football and it will be fascinating to see who takes the honour this year.

Player of the Tournament: Past winners

2016 / Antoine Griezmann – France (Reached final)
2012 / Andres Iniesta – Spain (Champions)
2008 / Xavi – Spain (Champions)
2004 / Theodoros Zagorakis – Greece (Champions)

Euro 2020 Player of the Tournament: The favourites

Kylian Mbappe – France (8.0)

It’s no surprise really to see  France’s star man heading the market for this one as well as featuring near the top of the betting in categories like top goalscorer too. The last winner of this award in 2016 was Antione Griezmann also from France, and Mbappe will be looking to follow in his footsteps this time around. The 22-year-old was simply outstanding in his country’s World Cup-winning campaign in 2018 and although Luka Modric of beaten finalists Croatia won the Player of the Tournament award Mbappe did pick up the Young Player of the Tournament award and to be honest, could have scooped both.

Mbappe will once again be a big part of a team packed with talent, the likes of Paul Pogba and Karim Benzema are just two of the players who could really combine well with him and see his performance levels remain consistently high. Off the back of a season scoring 42 goals in all competitions for PSG he will be full of confidence and in a tough group featuring both Portugal and Germany I expect Mbappe’s quality to shine through and it would not surprise me to see him collect this honour.

Kevin De Bruyne – Belgium (10.0)

The next man the bookies have in line is Kevin De Bruyne who is likely to be the ultimate spark in Belgium’s midfield/attack. Thankfully for Belgian fans and frankly anyone who has an appreciation for watching the best players play in the biggest tournaments, De Bruyne is linking up with the Belgium squad despite suffering two facial fractures in the Champions League final. Roberto Martinez says he is ‘unlikely to be fit’ for their opener against Russia but it looks as though he should come into the picture after that.

Given Belgium’s ambitions of going deep and ultimately winning this tournament I don’t think missing the first game against Russia will really affect his chances of winning Player of the Tournament too much. It will be likely that his input further down the line will be what really gets noticed. He’s had another great season for Man City and with several capable attackers around him in this Belgium team he looks solid enough.

Euro 2020 Player of the Tournament: Dark horse

Ngolo Kante – France (15.0)

I was really surprised to see that Ngolo Kante was a big outsider in the betting when recently researching up my Euro 2020 team-by-team guide – he was as big as 67.0 at one point! His odds have quite rightly shortened since his Man of the Match performance in the Champions League final but at 15.0 I still think there is a lot of value there. He’s had a phenomenal season for Chelsea which was capped off with a huge game in Porto at the end of May. He’ll surely be a permanent fixture in the middle of the park for France who will be navigating their way out of a tricky group as I mentioned earlier.

I can understand why others are shorter given the attacking talent that some of the favourites like Mbappe and De Bruyne possess, but Kante’s performances don’t go unnoticed among avid football fans and he should probably be shorter. Another factor that leads me to fancy the chances of Kante is looking back at the past winners. Players of a similar ilk have won this award before – Xavi being a great example. If you’re looking for some value away from the favourites then I think you could do worse than Kante at 15.0.

Euro 2020 Player of the Tournament: No value

Antoine Griezmann – France (15.0)

Antione Griezmann received this award at Euro 2016 but I think there will be a few candidates ahead of him this time around in my opinion and he’s arguably not as crucial to this team as he was five years ago. In terms of his own side there are the likes Mbappe and Benzema who I expect to be at the top of their games so while he is still undoubtedly a quality player I’m not sure how much of an outstanding performer he will be. There’s also plenty of others to consider with the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Harry Kane who could put in some big performances.

I won’t personally be backing him at the odds available, I think there are far more attractive propositions elsewhere in this market and that would lead me back to those discussed above.