The full voting breakdown for this year’s Ballon d’Or prize has been released, showing that Lionel Messi pipped Virgil van Dijk to the award by just seven points.
A single journalist from each of the 176 voting nations submitted their top five choices to France Football, with their number one ranked player receiving six points, the second getting four, and so on.
The final voting figures show that Barcelona star Messi picked up a total of 686 points to win a record sixth Ballon d’Or, with Liverpool’s Champions League-winning centre-half Van Dijk finishing second on 679 and Cristiano Ronaldo of Juventus a distant third on 476.
Interestingly, more journalists chose Van Dijk as their top player than did Messi, with 68, including English representative Henry Winter, of The Times, opting for the Dutchman, compared to 61 for the eventual winner.
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Among the more bizarre choices were the Sri Lankan voter selecting Trent Alexander-Arnold as his number one player in the world. In all, nine different players received at least one first choice vote, the others being Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, Mo Salah, Alisson Becker, Robert Lewandowski and Kylian Mbappe.
Of the 30 players shortlisted, three - Donny van de Beek (Ajax), Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid) and Marquinhos (PSG) – did not make the top five of a single journalist, thus finishing on zero points.
Ballon d’or 2019 final standings
- 1. Lionel Messi – 686
- 2. Virgil van Dijk – 679
- 3. Cristiano Ronaldo – 476
- 4. Sadio Mane – 347
- 5. Mohamed Salah – 178
- 6. Kylian Mbappe – 89
- 7. Alisson – 67
- 8. Robert Lewandowski – 44
- 9. Bernardo Silva – 41
- 10. Riyad Mahrez – 33
- 11. Frenkie de Jong – 31
- 12. Raheem Sterling – 30
- 13. Eden Hazard – 25
- 14. Kevin de Bruyne – 14
- 15. Matthijs de Ligt – 13
- 16. Sergio Aguero – 12
- 17. Roberto Firmino – 11
- 18. Antoine Griezmann – 9
- 19. Trent Alexander-Arnold – 8
- =20. Dusan Tadic – 5
- =20. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – 5
- 22. Son Heung-min – 4
- 23. Hugo Lloris – 3
- =24. Kalidou Koulibaly – 2
- =24. Marc-Andre ter Stegen – 2
- =26. Karim Benzema – 1
- =26. Giorginio Wijnaldum – 1
- =28. Donny van de Beek – 0
- =28. Joao Felix – 0
- =28. Marquinhos – 0
