Lionel Messi has been announced as the winner of FIFA’s The Best Men’s Player of the Year.

The Barcelona forward beat Virgil van Dijk and Cristiano Ronaldo to the award, which was announced at a ceremony in Milan.

Messi has enjoyed yet another remarkable year and he continues it by winning The Best award for the first time in his career.

Messi’s triumph returns some sense of normality to football’s standings, with their duopoly broken last year by Luka Modric.

All three players were shortlisted following their respective achievements in 2018/19.

Van Dijk helped Liverpool win the Champions League for the sixth time in history, while Messi and Ronaldo won league titles with Barcelona and Juventus respectively.

Messi was on course for a historic season but Barcelona suffered defeats in the Champions League semi-final and the Copa del Rey final.

But those disappointments didn’t take away from what was a brilliant individual season for the Argentinian.

He netted 51 goals in 49 appearances in all competitions - it certainly wasn’t his fault that the Blaugrana blew a 3-0 advantage against Liverpool.

Meanwhile, it was a case of different country, same result for Ronaldo.

The Portuguese added a Serie A winner’s medal to his Premier League and La Liga medals, scoring 21 goals as Juventus won an eighth consecutive title.

Those two are used to the spotlight. Van Dijk is quickly growing accustomed to it as well.

He really is living his best life right now, rising to a level where it’s hard to argue against him being the best defender in the world.

But he had to stand and watch as Messi collected the main prize at FIFA’s ceremony.

Congratulations, Lionel!

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