Seven Liverpool Stars Nominated for 2019 Ballon d’Or

With France Football releasing the thirty finalists for the 2019 Ballon d’Or today, we always knew there would be more than a few Liverpool players in the running, starting with UEFA’s male player of the year. Probably nobody, though, expected this many.

Probably nobody expected seven of the 30 finalists, or around a quarter, to be Liverpool players. With, as expected, Virgil van Dijk leading the way as one of the two favourites along with Barcelona maestro and the game’s greatest ever player, Lionel Messi.

He’s joined not entirely surprisingly by goalkeeper Alisson Becker and star forwards Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah. He’s also joined—perhaps somewhat surprisingly—by Trent Alexander-Arnold, Roberto Firmino, and Georginio Wijnaldum.

Add it all up and you’ve got eight of Liverpool’s eleven key starters from last season’s Champions League winning side—and this season’s Premier League title hopefuls. And when put in that context, it certainly isn’t undeserved for any of them.

The nominees for the 2019 Ballon d’Or:

Trent Alexander-Arnold / Liverpool FC & England
Sergio Aguero / Manchester City & Argentina
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang / Arsenal & Gabon
Alisson Becker / Liverpool FC & Brazil
Karim Benzema / Real Madrid & France
Kevin de Bruyne / Manchester City & Belgium
Frenkie de Jong / Barcelona & Netherlands
Matthijs de Ligt / Juventus & Netherlands
Joao Felix / Atletico de Madrid & Portugal
Roberto Firmino / Liverpool FC & Brazil
Antoine Griezmann / Barcelona & France
Eden Hazard / Real Madrid & Belgium
Kalidou Koulibaly / Napoli & Senegal
Robert Lewandowski / Bayern Munich & Poland
Hugo Lloris / Tottenham Hotspur & France
Sadio Mane / Liverpool FC & Senegal
Riyad Mahrez / Manchester City & Algeria
Marquinhos / Paris Saint-Germain & Brazil
Kylian Mbappe / Paris Saint-Germain & France
Lionel Messi / Barcelona & Argentina
Cristiano Ronaldo / Juventus & Portugal
Mohamed Salah / Liverpool FC & Egypt
Bernardo Silva / Manchester City & Portugal
Heung-min Son / Tottenham Hotspur & South Korea
Raheem Sterling / Manchester City & England
Dusan Tadic / Ajax & Serbia
Marc-Andre ter Stegen / Barcelona & Germany
Donny van de Beek / Ajax & Netherlands
Virgil van Dijk / Liverpool FC & Netherlands
Georginio Wijnaldum / Liverpool FC & Netherlands