By Edwin Eriye
Barcelona Captain, Lionel Messi has been awarded Best FIFA Men’s player ahead of Virgil van Dijk and Cristiano Ronaldo, sky sports reports.
The Barcelona star scored more league goals than anyone else in Europe last season, registering 36 times as he helped the Spanish side win another La Liga title.
It is also the sixth time the 32-year-old has scooped the award, now seeing him move one step ahead of rival Cristiano Ronaldo.
The duo have dominated the award since 2008, with their string of victories only interrupted by Luka Modric last year.
It was the second award of the night for the Argentinean forward, who was also included in the men’s team of the 2018-19 season – as voted for by their fellow professionals.
FIFA have revealed the breakdown of the vote, with some interesting surprises among the selections.
Messi went for Liverpool winger Sadio Mane and had Ronaldo as his second pick, but Ronaldo did not return the favour, omitting Messi from his top three while opting for Juventus team-mate Matthijs de Ligt as his first option.
Matthijs de Ligt (Netherlands, Juventus), Sergio Ramos (Spain, Real Madrid), Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands, Liverpool) and Marcelo (Brazil, Real Madrid) made up the defence.
The midfield featured Luka Modric (Croatia, Real Madrid), Frenkie de Jong (Netherlands, Ajax) and Eden Hazard (Belgium, Real Madrid).
While up front it was Kylian Mbappe (France, Paris Saint-Germain), Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Juventus).
The British Broadcasting Commission also published that Liverpool’s manager Jurgen Klopp was also named men’s coach of the year after a season in which they beat Tottenham 2-0 to lift the Champions League.
The Reds also finished second in the Premier League with 97 points – the third-highest tally recorded in the competition.
Klopp was nominated for the award along with two other Premier League bosses – Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino.
“It is great, nobody expected this 20, 10, five, four years ago that I would be standing here,” said Klopp, whose team have won all six league matches at the start of the 2019-20 season.
“We know what an incredible job you [Mauricio Pochettino] did and what Pep did. I have to say thank you to my outstanding club Liverpool FC.
“To the owners’ thank you, they gave me an incredible team. I have to thank my team – as a coach you can only be as good as your team is. I’m really proud of being manager of such an incredible bunch of players.”
In accepting the award, Klopp announced that he is joining the Common Goal initiative set up by Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata. It means the Reds boss will donate 1% of his salary to the charity, which pledges to “generate social change and improve lives”.
Liverpool’s goalkeeper Alisson was also a winner as he took the best goalkeeper prize ahead of Manchester City’s Ederson and Barcelona’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen. As well as success in the Champions League, Alisson was first choice for Brazil as they
Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa won the fair play award after he ordered his team to allow Aston Villa to score an uncontested equalizer during their 1-1 draw in their Championship match in April.
Bielsa’s side had gone ahead controversially when the Villa players stopped as they expected the ball to be kicked out of play when Jonathan Kodjia was injured, before the Argentine intervened.
Eighteen-year-old Daniel Zsori won the Puskas award for the best goal with his spectacular 93rd-minute overhead kick for Debrecen against Ferencvaros, just after he came on as a substitute for his Hungarian league debut in February.
His strike beat Messi’s chip from the edge of the penalty area against Real Betis and Juan Quintero’s powerful 30-yard free-kick for River Plate against Racing Club.
