As the year comes to its end, time comes to look back on the footballing season behind us and reward the biggest stars. Football’s most prestigious individual award, France Football’s Ballon d’Or, is set to hold its award ceremony on October 28 in Paris’ s Châtelet theatre.
Last week, France Football and UEFA announced a 30-name shortlist for the award which, as always, caused some controversy. Most notably, Real Madrid’s Rodrygo Goes was left wondering about the reasons of his absence from the said shortlist.
We decided to look at the names on the shortlist and compare their Sofascore ratings. The time span we took into consideration is the same as France Football’s – from the 1st of August 2023 to 31st of July 2024. Ratings from all official club and country competitions were taken into account, so let’s dive straight to the rankings:
As you can probably tell, this race is pretty tough for a defender to win. Centre-backs William Saliba and Antonio Rüdiger both had impressive seasons, and their inclusion in this shortlist is definitely a well-deserved compliment. The same can be said for Artem Dovbyk and his season in LaLiga which he ended as the competition’s top scorer. Veteran defender Mats Hummels and his guidance of Borussia Dortmund to the Champions League final definitely deserved a recognition, too. On to the next ten players:
Seeing some of the top runners for the actual award not making it to the Top 15 might come across as a surprise. It’s especially the case with the likes of Vinícius Júnior, Erling Haaland and Lamine Yamal. On the other hand, Ademola Lookman will certainly be content with his place on this shortlist after the brilliant individual season he had and capped it off with a hat-trick in the Europa League final.
The Top 15 is opened by Dani Olmo who made the cut despite playing significantly fewer games than the other players featured on the list. However, his performances in the latter stage of the Euros made him very hard to overlook. Arsenal‘s magic trio lines up nicely after a strong run for the Gunners, looking to build on that in the next season. Interestingly. only Real Madrid has more players on this list than Arsenal. Meanwhile, despite the lack of collective success and team silverware, Harry Kane‘s goalscoring spree in his first season with Bayern sees him quite high on the list.
Another name worth mentioning is definitely Bayer Leverkusen‘s Alejandro Grimaldo. He finds himself in the sixth place on the list and is by far the best-placed defender on the shortlist. Even though Xabi Alonso’s offensive system saw him spend more time on the opponent’s half of the pitch, he is still very much a left back and that makes this achievement worthy of respect.
Now, onto the top five:
The top five is opened by another player who thrived under Xabi Alonso – the amazing Florian Wirtz had a season to remember, completely leaving behind the memories of his horrid injury and quickly returning back to his brilliant best. He also had a successful summer with Die Mannschaft, being one of their most important players in a memorable campaign.
Another dynamic offensive midfielder, Manchester City’s Phil Foden, just missed out on the podium. We all knew that The Stockport Iniesta was a baller, but last season saw him reach new heights and step up for Manchester City en route to another Premier League title defense. Slowly but surely, he is taking over the reign in his boyhood club and will surely become a club legend and probably the most decorated player on the club’s history.
Another young Englishman opens up the podium. You wouldn’t write his debut season in Madrid the way it played out even if you were making a movie about him. Reaching double digit figures in goals and assists, scoring a winner in both of the league El Clásicos, taking the center of the stage, topping it all off with a LaLiga and Champions League double and having your own chant at the Bernabéu… he really is him. And he might just be getting started…
The campaign has stepped up for a defensive midfielder, or a player not directly involved in a huge number of goals, to get the recognition they deserve and receive football’s highest individual trophy. Many suggest Rodri‘s games are the absolute key both for Manchester City and Spain, the best club and country sides in football. Intelligent, cool, collected, always in the right place at the right time, Rodri just can’t put a foot wrong. The fact that he didn’t lose a game in 90 minutes since February 2023 really does say a lot about his influence on the pitch. However, the stats suggest he just misses out on the top spot.
And the top spot is reserved for… who else? The only other player besides Harry Kane to hit the 50 goal-mark, followed by domestic success with PSG and being, well, pretty much unstoppable whenever he was on the pitch. Kylian Mbappé is entering his prime, set to conquer a new country and, at a club of such stature, probably the world as well.
While the final Ballon d’Or standings will definitely look a lot more different, Sofascore offers a unique, completely objective view on how the nominees performed in the designated period and should be used as a helpful tool to assess the bigger picture, and not necessarily the undisputed truth. Even though the numbers never lie, the game is about more than just numbers and it’s definitely important to consider the opinions of those who see, experience and understand the unmesuarable. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between.