The Guardian crowns Lionel Messi best in the world
He was chosen ahead of Virgil van Dijk and Sadio Mane
Lionel Messi has been ruled the best player in the world by the Guardian newspaper.
They put together an extensive poll of various writers and came up with an unsurprising result.
“It is the fifth time Messi has topped our list, which had a record number of judges again this year, 239 from 63 countries. We started the exercise in 2012 and Messi won the inaugural award as well as the year after, 2015 and 2017,” wrote the English newspaper.
“Every single judge had Messi on their voting slip, compared to 235 for the second-placed Virgil van Dijk. The fact that the Barcelona No 10 was 20 places ahead of his nearest club-mate, Marc-André ter Stegen, speaks volumes of how he has somehow become even more important for his side.”
Man City had the most players on their list of the top 100, with 11, while Liverpool were second with 10 and Barcelona joint third with PSG on 9. Real Madrid have seven and Tottenham have six.
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