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2018 has been a truly spectacular year for football fans. We witnessed Real Madrid's heroics in winning the Champions League for the third time consecutively, while Manchester City were rampant in their unbelievable march to the Premier League title.
Elsewhere, PSG expectedly regained their French crown, while Bayern Munich and Juventus also continued their long-running stranglehold on their respective leagues.
It was not all rosy though as some clubs faltered. Manchester United fell some way off the heights expected, which ultimately cost Jose Mourinho his job, while Barcelona failed in their European objectives.
On the international scene, we had the pleasure of watching the mother of all events as Russia hosted the world, with France triumphing on the grandest stage where future superstars were born.
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The new season has offered a chance at redemption for clubs who failed to match their objectives last term and while some such as Barcelona and Liverpool appear willing to grab the opportunity, others like Real Madrid and Bayern Munich seem to be faltering.
It was also a wonderful year on an individual level, with the most spectacular individual performance perhaps being that of Luka Modric. He finally broke the decade-long duopoly of Messi and Ronaldo over the individual awards with his Ballon d'Or triumph, while players like Sancho, Salah, Mbappe amongst others catapulted themselves to international repute.
There were numerous players who made 2018 such a delight for fans with their exceptional displays on the lush green grass, but unfortunately, we have to trim this down to five. In this piece, we would be taking a look at the five most impressive players across the world of football in the year 2018.
Honourable mentions - Eden Hazard, Antoine Griezmann, Harry Kane, Raphael Varane, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker
#5 Mohamed Salah
What a year it has been for Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian had a record-breaking debut season for Liverpool, which made the £35m Liverpool paid to Roma for his services look like chump change.
The 25-year-old scored 44 goals in all competitions to help Liverpool reach the final of the Champions League, while he also broke the joint record held by Alan Shearer, Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo of most Premier League goals in a 38-game season with his 32 strikes.
His displays saw him deservedly named the PFA and PWA Player of the Year, while he also made a podium finish at the 2018 FIFA Best Awards.
The Egyptian scored the decisive goal deep into injury time in October last year which took his country to the World Cup for the first time in 28 years but had his season cruelly ended with a shoulder injury in the UCL final just weeks to the commencement of the World Cup.
Amidst fasts and prayers of his countrymen, Salah returned in time for the Mundial but was powerless to stop his nation's group stage exit although his class still shone through as he scored two goals.
This season, Salah has continued from where he left off despite a slow start and once more finds himself among the goals as Liverpool find themselves unbeaten in the Premier League in their quest for a first league title since 1990.
#4 Luka Modric
Luka Modric ensured his place in the annals of history by joining an illustrious list of past Ballon d'Or winners. What made the Croat's win more spectacular was the fact that he beat arguably the two greatest players of all time to achieve the feat.
The 33-year-old has been a steady performer in the Real Madrid side for the last six seasons, with his uncanny ability to dictate the tempo of matches and precise distributions helping Los Blancos to a plethora of titles in that time.
He however took his performance a notch higher this year, first starring as Real Madrid won the Champions League for the third season on the trot, before going on to give arguably his best individual performance at the World Cup where he captained an unfancied Croatia side all the way to the final of the tournament and his displays deservedly won him the World Cup Golden Ball.
Off the back of his displays in Russia, Modric was named the UEFA and FIFA Player of the Year, in addition to winning the Ballon d'Or. Even though there was a lot of debate as to his deservedness, there is no denying that it has truly been a spectacular year for Modric and he would have been higher up this list but for the fact that he has been uncharacteristically off-colour this season.
#3 Cristiano Ronaldo
The Ronaldo/Messi story is really a touchy one, as both men have been on an almost equal level of play for the last decade and have almost an equal number of feverishly dedicated fans that placing one above the other in any ranking is all but guaranteed to trigger an online war and a hurl of insults at the writer.
However, the job must be done even at the risk of being trolled and despite not taking anything away from what Cristiano Ronaldo achieved in 2018, he can only find himself in third place in the list of the best performing players this year.
The Portuguese was instrumental, playing a massive role as Real retained the Champions League once more, winning the UCL Golden Boot with 15 goals, with most of them coming in crucial matches as Los Blancos' all-time record goalscorer almost single-handedly won the intense knockout fixture against Juventus.
He followed that up with match-winning displays at the World Cup, scoring four goals including a hat-trick in the opening match against Spain which made him the highest scoring European international of all-time.
The 33-year-old sealed a record-breaking transfer to Juventus in the summer and has continued from where he left off, banging in goals for fun to help Juventus make the best start ever in Serie A history as they aim to win the Scudetto for the eighth time consecutively.
The mercurial Portuguese ended 2018 with 49 goals and 13 assists from 53 appearances for club and country, which makes a mockery of those who suggest he is on a decline.
#2 Lionel Messi
How can a player who finished outside the top three for both the FIFA Best and Ballon d'Or be the second best performing player in the world right?
Well for starters, we all know the inconsistencies and controversies surrounding the handing out of individual awards in recent years and secondly, when it comes to all-round performance in 2018, arguably no one can come close to matching what Lionel Messi did this year.
Some might argue that he failed to lift his team on the biggest stages when they really needed him - going missing in Barcelona's quarter-final capitulation to AS Roma in the UCL, while also putting on a no-show in Argentina's shambolic World Cup performance. While it is hard to argue against this, a cursory look at other aspects of his game shows what an amazing year Messi had.
He won the European Golden Boot for the second year running and fifth time overall, as his 35 goals although slightly beneath his usual standards was some way more than anyone else managed.
He ended the year with more goals, more assists, more freekicks scored, more completed dribbles and more chances created than anyone else in Europe's top five leagues, while his record of 51 goals and 26 assists from just 54 matches for club and country shows how dominant he was this year.
This season, Lionel Messi seems to be on a mission to right all the wrongs from last season and silence his detractors and if he is to up the ante from his performance this year, it is hard to see anyone stopping Barcelona this season.
#1 Kylian Mbappe
If 2017 which saw Kylian Mbappe win the Golden Boy award for his performance with Monaco was exceptional, then there might not be words to describe the exponential increase in his performances in 2018.
The Frenchman became the second most expensive player of all time following his record-breaking transfer from Monaco to PSG, but the youngster seems to be unfazed by the challenge.
After a relatively subpar first season with PSG, the prodigy took his performance to the next stage, showcasing his abilities on the grandest stage, wowing the world with his scintillating performances at the World Cup.
Mbappe's most dominant match (among many) at the mundial perhaps came in the second round fixture against Argentina. The Frenchman shone like a million stars, outperforming the legendary Lionel Messi as France knocked out Argentina, with Mbappe becoming the first teenager since Pele (more on him later) in 1958 to score a brace in a World Cup match.
Mbappe was the star of a youthful French side which powered its way to the final, with the PSG forward scoring four goals, one of which came in the 4-2 final defeat of Croatia (which once again made him the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since the legendary Pele himself did so against Sweden).
Mbappe's displays this year saw him named into the FIFPro XI for 2018 (once again the first teenager to make the list), while also achieving credible finishes in the Ballon d'Or and FIFA Best votes and winning the inaugural Trophy Kopa.
So far this season, Mbappe (who finally aged past his teens) has continued from where he stopped off and currently leads the scorers' charts in Ligue 1 with 13 goals (matching his tally from last season) while also contributing four assists to help PSG maintain an unbeaten start to the domestic season.
