Van Dijk Is UEFA Player Of The Year
Virgil van Dijk has been named the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year for 2018-19, seeing off competition from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Liverpool defender was crowned at the ceremony for the Champions League group stage draw on Thursday.
Van Dijk kept five clean sheets in 12 appearances as well as scoring two goals and contributing two assists as the Merseyside club lifted the trophy for a sixth time.
That victory in Madrid capped a fine campaign for the former Celtic and Southampton defender, who was also named PFA Players’ Player of the Season as well as Liverpool Players’ and Fans’ Player of the Season.
Van Dijk was also integral to the Netherlands’ run to the inaugural Nations League Finals in June, where they beat England 3-1 after extra-time in the last four before losing to Portugal in the final.
Liverpool also scooped two of the four positional awards, with Van Dijk named best defender ahead of team-mate Trent Alexander-Arnold and new Juventus signing Matthijs de Ligt.
Alisson Becker won the goalkeeper award, beating Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris and Marc-Andre ter Stegen of Barcelona.
Barcelona star Messi beat rival Ronaldo and Liverpool’s Sadio Mane to the forward award, after scoring 12 goals in 10 Champions League appearances for the Catalan giants last season.
Frenkie de Jong claimed the midfielder award ahead of Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen and Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson.
The first award of the evening went to Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, who collected the President’s Award from UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin to honour his illustrious playing career and charity work.
