FIFA The Best 2019: 3 reasons why Lionel Messi deserved to win the Best Men's Player award

#1 Overall, he outperformed the other nominees in all competitions

Messi set a lot of records last season

A lot of flak is being given to Lionel Messi over his undeservedness of the FIFA The Best award, but it must be remembered that his season was not as bad as detractors are making it out to be.

As already established, he was the best performing player in the Champions League, and elsewhere, other participants cannot genuinely claim to have outperformed him.

Ronaldo's league performance was a little above average at best, while he only went as far as the Champions League quarterfinal on the continent.

Domestically, Messi also starred in the cup competition. He returned to the starting lineup after sitting out the first leg in the quarterfinal of the Copa del Rey and helped overturn a 2-0 first-leg deficit to Sevilla with a goal and two assists in a 6-1 victory to help the Blaugrana qualify for the semifinal.

In the final, he also scored a goal against Valencia and although it proved to be nothing more than a mere consolation, it saw him become the first player in history to score in six different Copa del Rey finals.

There were also a number of other milestones during the course of the season, including becoming the player with the most wins in LaLiga history (339), the player with the most freekicks last season in Europe's big five leagues (six), as well as the first player to score 400+ goals in LaLiga among others.

By contrast, Ronaldo was powerless to stop Juventus' stranglehold of the Coppa Italia end, as they were dumped out by Atalanta in 3-0 loss at the quarterfinal stage, while Vigil van Dijk did not play in either the FA Cup or League Cup as Liverpool got eliminated in their first games of both competitions.

The only drawback to Messi was his disappointing display on the international scene with Argentina at the Copa America, while Ronaldo helped Portugal to the Nations League trophy with van Dijk captaining the Netherlands to the final.

In total, Messi ended last season with the LaLiga and Spanish Super Cup trophies, Ronaldo had the Serie A, Italian Super Coppa and UEFA Nations League trophies, while van Dijk had just the Champions League trophy to show for his efforts (although he did triumph in the UEFA Super Cup at the start of the current season).

Messi's performance across all competitions was better than those of his fellow contenders, and in light of this, the 32-year-old was a deserving winner of the 2019 Best FIFA Men's Player award.