Who Will Be Voted FIFA's Best Player: Virgil van Dijk, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi?

Who Will Be Voted FIFA's Best Player: Virgil van Dijk, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi?

Portuguese and Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo has made the Best FIFA Men's Player top 3 spot for the fourth consecutive times, having won it twice in 2016 and 2017. The two other contenders for The Best FIFA Men's Player award this year would be Argentine and Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and the Dutch and Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk. Van Dijk is making his first appearances in the top 3 list following his sensational 2018-19 season. The Best FIFA Men's Player will be announced next month on 23 September in Milan, Italy. 

Let's discuss their club, country, and individual performances for the 2018-19 season.

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Source: @fifa.com

Cristiano Ronaldo 

Cristiano Ronaldo, the two-times The Best FIFA Men's Player award winner had one of his successful campaigns in the 2018-19 season. Having spent 9 years in Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo transferred to Juventus last year. Following the arrival of Ronaldo, he successfully showed his impact on the team. He won Supercoppa Italiana and Serie A title with Juventus in his first season at the club. However, Juventus failed to reach the finals of Coppa Italia and UEFA Champions League. Despite his outstanding performance against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League round of 16 fixtures, Ronaldo could not help Juventus to pass FC Ajax through the quarterfinals. Ronaldo ended his first season with the club with 21 league goals as well. 

Ronaldo did not only win domestic titles in Italy, but he also led Portugal to win the inaugural UEFA Nations League, where they defeated the Netherlands in the final. Cristiano Ronaldo has been recently named the PFA Portuguese Player of the year for the fifth time, having already won the Serie A Most Valuable Player.

More About Cristiano Ronaldo's Career

Source: @Fifa.com

Lionel Messi

Barcelona star Lionel Messi also had one of his successful campaigns in the 2018-19 season. He captained the Barcelona team that won the 2018-19 La Liga title. However, Messi once gained to deliver his club with Champions League Trophy. Messi has not won Champions League in four years, as Real Madrid won it for 3 consecutive years, and Liverpool won the last one. Barcelona also surprisingly lost the Copa del Rey title to Valencia, having won it for the 4 consecutive years. Neither could Messi deliver Argentina with Copa America 2019. Messi's Argentina was eliminated from the semi-finals by the host and the eventual winner, Brazil.  

Talking about the individual performance, Lionel Messi finished his 2018-19 season with 36 league goals. He won Golden Shoe record six times. He was the top goalscorer and top assist provider in La Liga for the season. Though Barcelona failed to reach Champions League final, Lionel Messi was the top goalscorer in the competition. For his performance, he was named UEFA Club Forward of the Year in August 2019. He also won the La Liga Best Player and Pichici Trophy following the season. 

More About Lionel Messi's Career

Virgil van Dijk

Virgil van Dijk is considered a step ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi for every major award this year. Though van Dijk is not a forward unlike the two others, his achievements for club and country for the 2018-19 season is outstanding. Van Dijk led Liverpool to finish second in Premier League table with record 97 points and helped Liverpool to win its sixth UEFA Champions League title. Liverpool defeated Tottenham Hotspurs to win Champions League. One of the interesting fact about van Dijk for the 2018-19 season is that no players could pass through van Dijk last season. He also led the Netherlands to inaugural UEFA Nations League, where they lost to Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal in the final. 

Despite Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi dominated every major trophy for the last decade, Luka Modric broke their dominance in 2018. Van Dijk has already won the UEFA Men's Player of the year award, ahead of Ronaldo and Messi. He is the most favorite contenders to win FIFA Best Players award this year. 

More About Virgil van Dijk's Career

Who is going to win The Best FIFA Men's Player Award, We will have to wait until 23 September 2019.