With seven goals, Harry Kane has not only secured a spot on the ESM Team of the Month for May but also received the most votes. Champions League winners Paris St. Germain account for more than half of the team.
The end of the season was a real treat—in addition to the domestic leagues and cup competitions, the Champions League final was also on the schedule at the end of the month. The fact that Paris St. Germain won that match against Arsenal (4-3 on penalties) is also reflected in the ESM Team of the Month.
With Ousmane Dembelé (three votes), Achraf Hakimi, Willian Pacho, Nuno Mendes (four votes each), Vitinha, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (seven votes each), six PSG players impressed the jury consisting of nine sports magazines.
Dembelé, for example, who converted a penalty in regulation time during the Champions League final, had played a decisive role in Paris’s advancement to the final earlier that month with his goal in the semifinal second leg in Munich (1-1).
Three Gunners also represented
Despite the loss in the final, the starting lineup also includes three Gunners players who had been crowned Premier League champions about a week and a half before the match against PSG. For Arsenal, it was their first league title since the 2003/04 season—and at the same time a reason to celebrate with the fans in London.
Alongside David Raya (five votes), who was recently named the Premier League’s best goalkeeper of the season thanks to 19 clean sheets, center-back William Saliba and midfield maestro Declan Rice (seven votes each) were also unmissable in the voting.
Nine votes for Kane
The most votes, however, went to someone who had to watch the Champions League final from the couch: Harry Kane. The Bayern Munich striker, who scored three of his seven goals in May in the DFB-Pokal final against VfB Stuttgart (3-0), was the standout performer in May with nine votes.
Kane is thus once again represented in the ESM Team of the Month, as is his FCB teammate Michael Olise (three votes). The Frenchman, meanwhile, benefited from the fact that the decisive votes for Paris’ Joao Neves and Manchester United’s record-breaking Bruno Fernandes (three votes each) were submitted only after the deadline.