March is the kind of time that fatigue really starts to set in for players that have endured long, tiring seasons, and it isn't unfair to say that this is the month that best sets apart the good from the great. Those who can maintain top level performances right the way through to this stage of the season deserve the highest praise and WhoScored's top 3 rated players for the month of March are arguably the best on the planet at this stage in time.
Lionel Messi (rating 8.86), Luis Suarez (8.69) and Cristiano Ronaldo (8.58) have out-performed every other player in Europe's top 5 leagues over the past month, scoring a combined total of 21 goals to keep their sides firmly in their respective title races. Zlatan Ibrahimovic gets out of this one with PSG already having all but tied up the Ligue 1 crown, and perhaps he has taken his foot off the gas. Still, he hasn't fared too badly, making it into the top 20 despite the going the longest he has done all season without a league goal or assist: 2 matches.
Messi may no longer hold the title of the best player on the planet, and people had even been talking about the demise of Barcelona and their tika-taka ways, with Real and even Atlético Madrid looking more likely to win La Liga. Messi and Barça, after falling to defeat at Valladolid at the start of the month, recovered with 4 straight wins, including a 7-0 win over Osasuna and a 4-3 victory at the Bernabeu, with the diminutive Argentine netting a hat-trick and picking up an assist in each. Granted, two of his goals in the Clásico were from the penalty spot, but for one, he had already set up the opening goal, scored another and played the perfectly-weighted through ball for Neymar to induce the first penalty, and for two, stepping up in front of 81,000 people in that climate and dispatching two un-saveable penalties is probably harder than Messi, the greatest player of his generation, makes it look.
Suarez is WhoScored's Premier League's player of the month for a fourth time this season, as the Reds made it 8 wins on the bounce and took the title into their own hands. There is no secret about just how good the Uruguayan has been this season and this will go down in history as one of the greatest Premier League seasons a player has experienced. A hat-trick at Cardiff, a goal and assist at Southampton, another strike at Old Trafford and the second in a 4-0 win over Tottenham at Anfield capped off an incredible month that encapsulated everything so impressive about his season as perfectly as it possibly could.
Ronaldo's March may not have been as happy with Real Madrid suffering successive Liga losses for the first time since May 2009 and their title hopes taking a hit, but the Portuguese was a positive throughout, coming closest to stopping the side sliding to defeat at Sevilla, scoring once and striking the post. He scored in each of his 6 league appearances and picked up two more assists as his and Gareth Bale's partnership continues to grow. The title race is still on, and Ronaldo - along with Messi - will have a huge say in where the trophy goes.
Roberto Firmino has been linked with some of Europe's best teams and his form will mean those rumours only continue. There will be plenty of fans who haven't heard of the 22-year-old Brazilian, but a big money move away from Hoffenheim would change that, and one might just be forthcoming. Rated behind only the aforementioned trio, Roberto Firmino will have turned a few heads and may still be hoping for a late call up to the Brazil squad, though he has barely been considered thus far and that might be one step too far.
Freiburg's Admir Mehmedi could be a little-known player who is headed to the World Cup this summer, with his recent form likely to be enough to keep him in the Switzerland squad. He directly contributed to 5 goals and also completed 40 successful dribbles in just 6 appearances; a full 12 more than any other player in Europe's top 5 leagues. Raffael, Lewandowski, Tévez and Huntelaar are amongst the in-form forwards who miss out on a place in WhoScored's team of the month only due to Messi and Suarez's performances. Huntelaar netted 7 times in 6 appearances and was behind only Messi in terms of goals scored.
Jay Rodriguez deserves an honourable mention - and probably a place on the plane to Brazil with Roy Hodgson's England in the summer - for the way he's been playing of late. A perfect 10 in the 4-0 win over Newcastle at the weekend rounded off an exceptional month for the Englishman in which he scored in 4 successive matches after a loss to Liverpool. Capable of playing on the left or up front he is a versatile option for Saints and though he is not blessed with lightning pace or wonderful dribbling skills, he uses brilliant movement to find space and his lethal finishing has taken him up to joint-fourth in the Premier League goalscoring charts.
The most surprising player to make it into our top 20 in Manchester City's heavily maligned Martín Demichelis. The Argentine has become first-choice for City and has become a fixture in a team that kept 5 successive Premier League clean sheets; a run that ran though most of March and was only ended by Mathie Flamini's second half strike at the Emirates. Even with Vincent Kompany suspended, the City defence looked calm and assured and Demichelis deserves praise for retaining confidence and showing impressive strength of character in the face of plentiful criticism. He does well in the ratings in part thanks to his rather rash, overcommitted approach to defending which means he makes tackles when sometimes he should probably just look to stand his ground, but he has certainly improved and should be given credit for doing so.
Who were your standout players for the month of March? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
