{"id":9248,"date":"2019-08-29T15:05:08","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T19:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248"},"modified":"2019-09-01T11:06:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T15:06:08","slug":"virgil-van-dijk-named-as-uefa-mens-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248","title":{"rendered":"Virgil Van Dijk Named As UEFA Men\u2019s Player of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/2.44798148.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9249\" srcset=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/2.44798148.jpg 600w, https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/2.44798148-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/>Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk has been named UEFA Men\u2019s Player of the Year for 2018\/19.<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old Holland international beat Barcelona\u2019s Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo of Juventus to win the award after playing a starring role for Liverpool in their triumphant Champions League campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The former Celtic and Southampton center-half, who succeeded Real Madrid\u2019s Luka Modric as Europe\u2019s top player, was man of the match in the Champions League final win against Tottenham.<\/p>\n<p>He was also named PFA Player\u2019s Player of the Year in April after leading Liverpool to a second-placed finish in the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool signed Van Dijk for a reported fee of \u00a375million from Southampton on New Year\u2019s Day 2018 and the following October he was installed as captain by manager Jurgen Klopp after a players\u2019 vote.<\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman has added both much-needed steel, as well as guile, to Liverpool\u2019s defense and is widely regarded as one of the world\u2019s best central defenders.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-9248\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248&amp;share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-9248\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248&amp;share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-google-plus-1\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-google-9248\" class=\"share-google-plus-1 sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248&amp;share=google-plus-1\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Google+\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-print\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-print sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to print\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to print (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk has been named UEFA Men\u2019s Player of the Year for 2018\/19. The 28-year-old Holland international beat Barcelona\u2019s Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo of Juventus to win the award after playing a starring role for Liverpool&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-9248\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248&amp;share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-9248\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248&amp;share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-google-plus-1\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-google-9248\" class=\"share-google-plus-1 sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248&amp;share=google-plus-1\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Google+\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-print\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-print sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=9248\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to print\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to print (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9250,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9248\/revisions\/9250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}