UEFA have revealed the voting results for the Men’s Player of the Year award that was announced yesterday, with Virgil Van Dijk winning the accolade by a landslide.
The Dutchman was crowned as the winner of the award on Thursday evening, as he simultaneously became the first Dutch player and defender to pick up the award in Monaco at the Champions League draw.
Van Dijk was many people’s favourite to win the award given the brilliant form he displayed with Liverpool last year, form that coincided with their Champions League win back in June.
After the Reds superstar was confirmed that 2019’s winner of the award, UEFA revealed the full results of the voting for the accolade on their website, with there being some surprising results in store.
As seen on UEFA’s official site, Van Dijk received a huge 305 points during the voting stages, a total that was almost 100 more than what Messi managed, and around six times as many points as what teammates Mane and Salah received.
Other notable results from the voting show that Messi bagged almost three times as many points as fierce, long-time rival Ronaldo, whilst somewhat surprisingly, players like De Ligt and De Jong only managed to bag a measly 27 points each.
Following this award, it’ll be interesting to see whether Messi or Van Dijk will be crowned as this year’s Ballon D’Or winner later in the season, and whether the Dutchman can become the first Liverpool player since Michael Owen in 2001 to claim the prestigious accolade.