Through the years, the European Footballer of the year (Ballon d’Or) tend to honor the star attack. Liverpool’s victory, with the outstanding performances of Virgin central defender Van Dijk, can bring to these changes?
Six years ago, Virgil Van Dijk Liverpool central defender, at the time, Celtic shirt ever impress with excellent defensive skills against every attack of Barcelona.
Many people will feel about the final match between Liverpool and Tottenham by one word: boring. Liverpool’s two goals were not enough to obscure the identification. But there is a benefit from the boring match: Virgin Van Dijk.
The Dutch Central defender was voted the most outstanding player of the final. He is an important part of helping Liverpool keep clean sheets to bring Champions League Championship Friday in history. The professional quality of the match was affected significantly by the lack of precision, as well as the lack of attacking ideas. In contrast, Van Dijk expressed thanks to the ability to highlight disable the attack power of the Tottenham side stars as Harry Kane, Son Heung-Min or Christian Eriksen.
Medal for the winner is a worthy reward for Van Dijk as well as personal restaurant Liverpool. Just then, Liverpool season only 27 conceded goals in 38 matches, through which not only became the team with the best player the Premier League, but also the best crafts in 5 top European League. Also in the arena, the home team to Anfield Champions League only conceding 5 goals during the knockout, and three of them took place in the semi-final first leg with Barcelona.
Contributing to this achievement of Liverpool is the stability of Van Dijk. He made a total of 4465 minutes this season all over the arena, and only absent in the right three times, including the first leg of the Champions League with Bayern Munich 1/8 round because cards, and two matches in the domestic Cup final against Wolves and Chelsea as part of the personnel rotation plans of Juergen Klopp. In 50 matches this player is present, Liverpool spent 26 clean sheets.
It is the achievement of collective. Also in individual aspects, the statistics on the Dutch Player cannot be viewed normally. Notably, this age 27 central defender never outclassed once during the match were over 64, specifically here is calculated from the previous 5-0 Porto feedback February last year, his first match at the arena in Liverpool’s Champions League. And yet, Van Dijk also launched a total of 52 pha rules the ball successfully, and never once would rule the ball down.
The evidence convinced of both collective and individual achievements to provide a review: Van Dijk deserves heavy candidates for the title of European Footballer of the year took place in December. The opportunity to became the first Defender to win the title after the case of Fabio Cannavaro in 2006 is not low at all. If the winner, Van Dijk will become the fourth Defender to win in history.
From now to the end of the year, he also still plenty of opportunities to prove himself. Ahead is the semi-finals Nations League team the Netherlands. If Van Dijk of the Netherlands won the team help Nations League first season, his reputation will improve markedly. In the case of Liverpool, the Premier League next season start with the position of candidates won, even Van Dijk can outstrip its rivals in the race to the Ballon d’Or.
Of course, success in one arena doesn’t guarantee the opportunity to win the European Footballer of the year for any of the candidates. Luka Modric, who won the Ballon d’Or last year, has played very well at the 2018 World Cup, though he and Real Madrid before the season started extremely bad when it fell to ninth in La Liga and nearly out of the championship race. This shows the Van Dijk should efforts in the next tournament if it wants to ensure the opportunity to win awards at the end of the year.
