🏆 Why Virgil van Dijk should win the Ballon d'Or 🇳🇱 | OneFootball

With Virgil van Dijk bagging the Uefa Player of the Year award and Lionel Messi scooping Fifa’s The Best, it would appear to be a dead heat between those two for the 2019 Ballon d’Or.

But it’s Van Dijk who deserves it.

Of course, Messi was as phenomenal as usual in 2019. He netted 51 goals in all competitions as Barcelona retained their LaLiga title in 2018/19 and the greatest compliment you can pay him is that he has normalised his own brilliance.

But was Messi as influential to Barça as Van Dijk was to Liverpool this year?

Barcelona may or may not have won the league title without their talisman, but Liverpool would not have won the Champions League or racked up 97 points in the Premier League without their rock at the back.

In terms of pure influence, Van Dijk is possibly the greatest signing ever made by a Premier League club.

When he joined Liverpool in January 2018, the Reds had let in just over twice the amount of league goals that Manchester City had.

And in his first full season, Liverpool had the best defence in the league, conceding just 22 goals.

The Dutchman is comfortably the best central defender on the planet and  he has more stats prove it.

Between March 2018 and August 2019 he made 50 appearances for Liverpool without being dribbled past. Extraordinary.

In a sport which often seems to over-value attackers and under-value defenders, wouldn’t it be great if one of the guys doing the dirty work got some global recognition for once?

Sorry Leo, but you’ve already won five Ballons d’Or. It’s Van Dijk’s turn.