Ronaldo, Messi, van Dijk – who should win the Best Fifa Football Award

Choosing the best player from the three world’s most famous and skillful players is certainly not an easy task to tackle. Christiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Virgil van Dijk made it into the Best Fifa Football Award shortlist but it’s incredibly hard to determine, who deserves the award most. Let’s take a look at each of them.

Christiano Ronaldo

Changing the club, and subsequently, the whole league was a challenging experience for Ronaldo. Unlike the other two players, he wasn’t able to help Juventus win the Champions League last season. Not only that, Juventus couldn’t win the Coppa Italia for the first time under Massimiliano Allegri’s management.

The transfer was so drastic that the whole sports betting industry reacted to it accordingly. If you try to learn more about the story you’ll find out that almost every bookie immediately lowered the odds for Real Madrid, and transferred those odds to Juventus.

While there might be many such factors suggesting that Ronaldo shouldn’t be the one for this award, the fact that he stood up to the challenge of the new team and the new league is certainly impressive. Granted, Juventus couldn’t win the Champions League, but there were other tournaments, notably Supercoppa and Scudetto, where the team scored its victory and Ronaldo was named their most valuable player. He was also the top scorer of the team. 

All of this suggests that he should definitely be included in the shortlist, if not chosen a winner. 

Lionel Messi

Messi is arguably one of the greatest football players of all time. There’s probably not many football enthusiasts who watch his games and don’t enjoy his dribbles, passes, and goals. Therefore it’s no surprise to see him among the three possible candidates of the Best Fifa Football Award. 

If that’s not enough to grant him the award, here are some of his latest stats: Messi scored the highest amount of goals in Europe in 2018-2019 (33 goals). He was also the fifth in assists, third in chances created in open play, fourth in dribbles completed, second in passes into the final third, and first in shots against the woodwork. Not only that, even his competitor in the awards, Virgil van Dijk acknowledged that he is the greatest player of all time and he deserves the award more than anyone.

But sometimes even the greatest individuals are taken for granted after some time. When we see just how incredible Messi’s plays are we assume that that’s just how it is with him. We no longer get the amazement of such ‘deeds’. If we saw another player with the same skillset we’d be immediately astonished. Not for Messi though.

Virgil van Dijk

Van Dijk is another shortlisted candidate who changed the club and moved to Liverpool in 2018. His overall resume may not be as incredible as the other candidates’ but the plays that he had during the last year definitely make him a notable contender.

His influence on Liverpool as a defender was so transformative that they reached the Champions League Final in the previous season, only to be defeated by Real Madrid in Kyiv. Dijk is considered one of the world’s best in his position, being ranked alongside such great players as Alan Hansen.

There are also setbacks in his latest career, notably his loose backpass which sealed Napoli’s 2-0 win against Liverpool in the first Champions League game. But those moments happen to every single player, which cannot be the reason why Dijk is not worthy of the award.