2024 will be the third year in which the Ballon d’Or is awarded over a league campaign rather than a calendar year, and that means we’re almost halfway through this season, and the leading pack are setting a furious pace.
Manchester City’s midfield anchor Rodri has emerged as the best in his business, while teammate Julian Alvarez is proving to be a top class Premier League striker.
Antoine Griezmann is back to his best at Atletico Madrid and eight-time winner Lionel Messi has his eye on his ninth.
All these players will be around the top 10, but I have picked out five who I believe are potential winners.
Germany and France have won seven Ballon d’Ors through history, England have won five, and Spain three, and I have an inkling the winner may come from the Spanish top-flight this year.
Jude Bellingham, Real Madrid
Where else to start thanLa Liga’s latest sensation, and I think Jude Bellingham will take some stopping this year.
He scored 10 goals in is first 10 games for Real Madrid, matching the record set by another Ballon d’Or legend, Cristiano Ronaldo, and he bagged a brace to win El Clasico in October.
Where does he want his statue?
The England midfielder dislocated his shoulder in November but returned to action just three weeks later when he made an assist and scored a goal in a 3-0 win over Cadiz.
He was heavily strapped, and that just adds to the aura of Bellingham’s invincibility. He won the Kopa Trophy for the best young player last year, and I reckon Bellingham is the man to beat for the 2024 Ballon d’Or.
Erling Haaland, Manchester City
Here at SBOTOP, we think Bellingham’s biggest challenge is likely to come from another Borussia Dortmund old boy who is now breaking records in the Premier League.
Norwegian goal machine Erling Haaland helped the Sky Blues to the treble last season, and it took him less than three minutes to get off the mark in the 2023/24 league campaign, scoring the opener in a 3-0 win away to Burnley.
In August, he was named the Premier League’s Players’ Player of the Year Award, and in November he became the fastest player to score 50 goals in the English top-flight, bagging in a 1-1 draw with Liverpool, just his 48th league match for the Sky Blues.
With 14 goals and four assists from 15 games this season, Haaland is the red-hot favourite to be the Premier League top scorer and he is surely set to break more records over the next five months.
Harry Kane, Bayern Munich
The 2018 World Cup Golden Boot winner has made an explosive start to life in Germany after his summer switch from Tottenham Hotspur. He scored in his first league game for Bayern a 4-0 win away to Werder Bremen, and he also set up an assist for Leroy Sane, and the two have forged a lethal partnership over the past three months.
As he gathered momentum, Kane scored his first hat-trick for Bayern in a 7-0 thumping of VfL Bochum to make it seven goals in his first five games.
He scored two more hat-tricks by the beginning of November, and by the end of the month, with 18 goals, the Bayern man became the highest scoring Englishman in a Bundesliga season.
Kane is in a race with VfB Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy for the Bundesliga Golden Boot, and my money is on another win for the England scoring sensation.
Kylian Mbappe, PSG
He’s been knocking on the door of the Ballon d’Or offices for a couple of years now, and just when he hoped the Messi/Ronaldo period of domination was over, Mbappe is in serious danger of being upstaged by the next generation of Bellingham and Haaland.
Haaland is 23 and Bellingham just 20 and, approaching his 25th birthday, Mbappe has already scored 150 goals in 163 games for PSG.
He scored three goals and made three assists for France in a 14-0 win over Gibraltar and his third goal was the 300th in his career and he also went past Griezmann to become France’s third all-time top scorer.
He will climb to the top of that tree soon enough, and Mbappe is an amazing talent. Can he win a Ballon d’Or? The Ballon d’Or 2023 betting odds say the league title is staying in Paris, but I’d say much depends on PSG’s performance in Europe.
Mohamed Salah, Liverpool
He dominated the Ballon d’Or 2023 news in the summer when he was the target of a £155 million bid, and the good news for Liverpool fans is that the British press are reporting this week that the Saudis are unlikely to come calling for Salah again in January.
His goals have fired the Reds to the top of the league table, and in October, the Egyptian scored his 200th league goal in the Merseyside Derby.
And then he scored his 200th goal for Liverpool in a 2-1 win away to Crystal Palace to become the fifth Reds player to reach that landmark, the last being the Anfield legend Ian Rush.
Salah is chasing Haaland in the race for the Golden Boot, and he is surely the most loved man in the red half of Merseyside right now.
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