Liverpool boss Jurgen klopp has back his player Van Dijk to win the prestigious award ahead of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Van dijk has been immersed since joining liverpool from Southampton and has revatilized liverpool shaky defence in previous seasons making them boost of the best defensive record in the premier league. He also contributed to liverpool champions league win last season with an outstanding performance against Barcelona in the semi final return leg at Anfield , where liverpool trash Barcelona 4-0 to overturn a 3-0 deficit to reach the final of the champions league in which they won Tottenham 2-0.
He also led his national team Neitherlands to the Nations League final where they lost to Portugal in the final. Van dijk has also help his club side liverpool challenge for the premier league title. Last season, they came so close to winning their first ever premier league title, but unfortunately defending champions Manchester city won the title with just one point ahead of liverpool.
This season, liverpool have made it clear that the premier league title is theirs, as they have remain unbeaten in the premier league since the start of the season. They are comfortably sitting top of the table with 37 points from 13 league games played this season.
Though Messi remains firmly in contention for a sixth Ballon d’Or and did manage to edge out Van Dijk for FIFA’s Best award in September, claiming eight more votes than the liverpool man.
Klopp who is a big fan of Lionel Messi believes that Van Dijk has performed better over the past year and deserves to win the award.
“If you give the Ballon d’Or to the best player of this generation then you should give it always to Lionel Messi. That’s how it is,” Klopp said.
“But if you give it to the best player of last season, then it was Virgil van Dijk. I don’t know exactly how it
will work but that is how I see it.
“The best player of all? That’s Lionel. Best player of last season? That’s Virgil. We will see.”
Messi last won the award in 2015 and would surpass Cristiano Ronaldo should he claim a sixth Ballon d’Or.
