🔝 The five best players of 2020 | OneFootball

What a year 2020 has been – one that many people would like to forget and move on no doubt.

But we aren’t ready to do that just yet.

First we’re crowning, in no particular order, the top five players of the last calendar year.

Robert Lewandowski

It is a shame about the Ballon d’Or’s cancellation because the Bayern striker would have gotten our vote.

In a year in which he turned 32, he found another level and looks fitter than ever, perhaps even hitting his prime for club and country.

When it comes to discussing how lethal Lewandowski is, we need only really present you with the cold, hard and frightening facts.

In 2020, he played 43 games for Bayern and scored 45 goals, while also providing 14 assists.

He scored in every single Champions League game of the campaign for Bayern last season bar the final as he finally got his hands on the big trophy.

The Bundesliga, DFB Pokal, DFL-Supercup and Uefa Super Cup were also added to his ever-expanding trophy cabinet.

There is no better centre-forward on the planet. This year, he started 42 games for Bayern and only finished without a goal in 12 of them. Staggering.

Jordan Henderson

There simply had to be a Liverpool player included after their long wait for Premier League glory finally came to an end.

And there were plenty of good contenders too (if you’d pick Sadio Mané, we certainly won’t complain) but ultimately, it’s got to be the skipper who held that trophy aloft at Anfield this summer.

Liverpool have players who score more goals (Mo Salah), pull off stunning saves (Alisson) and make defending look easy (Virgil van Dijk) but it is Henderson who makes everything tick.

He is the beating hart of this Reds side in the centre of the park and has played with a much-merited swagger throughout so much of this year.

It is testament to his talent and footballing brain that he has even filled in at centre-back and right-back when the cause has called on it.

Henderson was thankfully recognised for his contributions by winning the Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year and a nomination for BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Well deserved, too.

Lionel Messi

It may not have been a vintage year for the Barcelona talisman.

But a year in which he isn’t perceived as being at his best still amounts to 25 goals and 18 assists for the Blaugrana in all competitions.

The Catalan giants have been a basket case this year, with mismanagement from the boardroom all the way down to the field of play.

Even amidst all of that unrest and a very real summer scare that he was going to depart, Messi still managed to make Barça competitive throughout that.

He almost single-handedly dragged a subpar side under Quique Setién to the title, only to fall just short and is still mounting rescue missions under Ronald Koeman.

You dread to even think of the position that Barcelona would be in without Messi’s magic, even at the age of 33.

Ending last season as LaLiga’s top scorer and assister despite all of the chaos around him may be one of his finest achievements yet.

Erling Haaland

When 2020 began, the young Norwegian wasn’t just celebrating the new year, he was also toasting his recently-agreed move to Borussia Dortmund.

And the Westfalenstadion has quickly fallen in love with the unstoppable striker, who has been absolutely on fire this year.

His debut was the perfect sign of things to come, coming on as a second half substitute at Augsburg with his side trailing 3-1 and rattling in a 20-minute hat-trick as his side won 5-3.

Those exploits weren’t just confined to domestic action though and it seems that barely a Champions League matchday goes by without Haaland setting some kind of scoring record or another.

In that competition, he’s averaging a goal every 56 minutes! That’s the best ratio in history among players who have double figure goals in it.

As if all that wasn’t enough, after starting 2020 without a goal for his country, he scored six times in five caps to get up and running in style.

Oh, and he only turned 20 during the summer.

Joshua Kimmich

Is there a more intelligent footballer in the world than Kimmich?

We all know his team-mate for club and country Manuel Neuer fancies himself as an outfield player, but we think the 25-year-old could do the goalkeeper’s job just as easily.

As well as playing up front. Or on the wing. Or even in the dugout as manager, such is his impeccable reading of the game.

Kimmich is the complete player, capable of not only carrying out any role that is asked of him but doing so at an elite level too.

Injury elsewhere meant he was forced to resume his old right-back role in the Champions League final, the biggest game on the club calendar, and he didn’t put a foot wrong.

In his more natural position in the centre of the park, he arguably has no peer anywhere in the world as he does everything in that role and does it very well.

He also has a knack for important goals too, with his sublime chip away to Dortmund all but securing the title and his outrageous heel flick from a prone position against the same opponent in the Supercup delivering another trophy.