Ballon d'Or Power Ranking: January 2019

#9 Virgil Van Dijk

Van Dijk tussles with Aguero for the ball

Having a centre-back pop up on this list is a bit of a rare occurrence. When Liverpool shelled out £75 million last January to secure the services of Virgil Van Dijk in a bid to shore up their defence, even they wouldn't have expected the Dutchman to make the kind of impact he has inside a year at Anfield.

Van Dijk now captains the side in the absence of Jordan Henderson and is an absolute human roadblock that's helping Klopp greatly in his attempts to make Anfield a fortress. Van Dijk is, without doubt, one of the finest centre-backs in the world right now and has a huge role to play in the Reds being on top of the Premier League table right now.

He helped Liverpool keep 5 cleansheets in the month of December alone. If the former Southampton man kicks on in the same vein, he will eventually be regarded as one of the best centre-backs to have ever played in the Premier League and for that reason, Van Dijk becomes a surprise entrant in this list.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Sripad