Ballon d'Or 2024: The Race for the Best Footballer

The race to be called the best footballer on the planet has always had a simple rule of thumb: win the biggest trophies in a World Cup year and the crown usually follows. This time, the spotlight swings naturally towards Spain’s champions and the stars who carried them across North America.

Rodri, already installed as Ballon d’Or winner in 2024, stands at the heart of that conversation again. The metronome of Spain and the anchor of every side he plays in, he now shares a dressing room at Barcelona with Lamine Yamal, the teenager who has turned raw talent into decisive end product on the grandest stage. Both have the medals, both have the narrative. Both know exactly what is at stake.

Harry Kane belongs in that frame as well. Sixty-one goals for Bayern Munich last season is a number that almost defies belief, even in the inflated attacking era. He bullied Bundesliga defences, dragged Bayern to another domestic title and looked, for long stretches, unstoppable. Yet the one line missing from his season — a Champions League triumph in 2026 — still weighs heavily when individual honours are handed out. Numbers matter. So do nights in May.

At Paris Saint-Germain, those nights have finally gone their way. Back-to-back Champions League titles have turned PSG from serial nearly-men into the team everyone else is chasing. Ousmane Dembele rode that wave, and with it comes a very real chance of going back-to-back in the Golden Ball conversation as well. If not him, then one of his teammates at Parc des Princes could easily emerge from the pack, armed with the kind of European pedigree voters rarely ignore.

Bacary Sagna, though, looks elsewhere for the season’s true standard-bearer.

The former Arsenal, Manchester City and France defender believes the conversation has become too narrow, too obsessed with centre-forwards and goal counts. Speaking to GOAL, he acknowledged Kylian Mbappe as one of the elite — “in the top three”, in his words — and praised a year that again underlined the Real Madrid forward’s status among the game’s leading lights. Being a striker, Sagna pointed out, naturally brings more chances to score and more favourable eyes.

Then he drew a line in the sand.

“For me, Kvara deserves the Ballon d'Or,” Sagna said, singling out Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. The Georgian winger, he argued, delivered a phenomenal campaign, shaping games from the flank and leaving a mark that went beyond simple statistics. Even without a Champions League trophy on his CV, Sagna believes many players inside the game would quietly agree: Kvaratskhelia was the most important player across last season.

Mbappe still looms over any such debate. His World Cup exploits, his avalanche of goals, his explosive start to the current campaign — they all reinforce the idea that he operates at a level only a handful can touch. Sagna did not dispute that. He simply posed the key question that so often decides the Ballon d’Or: how impactful were you for your team when it truly mattered?

That is where Mbappe’s story becomes more complicated.

Real Madrid, a club built on a culture of winning, have now gone two seasons without a major trophy. This has happened while fielding a forward who has already claimed two La Liga Golden Boots and racked up 90 goals in 106 appearances. The numbers scream dominance. The honours list does not.

Louis Saha, another former France international, understands the tension. Asked by GOAL whether Mbappe will ever finally get his hands on the Ballon d’Or, he cut straight to the core: the Champions League. Mbappe knows it. Everyone does. Lift that trophy and the individual prize almost takes care of itself, because the whole world watches those nights and judges accordingly.

Instead, a strange pattern has formed. Mbappe left a club that went on to conquer Europe, then joined one of the favourites only to see them fall short of the final. Saha described the growing narrative as “controversial” and admitted that, on a personal and even “spiritual” level, questions have started to surface. In his words, Mbappe risks being seen as a “black cat” in those decisive moments — an unfair tag, but one he will be desperate to shake off.

The hunger is not in doubt. Saha insisted that Mbappe deserves success, that his drive to be at the centre of every big moment is not selfishness but a trait shared by the greats. Football has always turned on players who demand the ball, demand responsibility, demand the stage. When it works, they are hailed as icons. When it does not, the criticism comes fast and loud.

Saha drew a sharp comparison with Cristiano Ronaldo. Strip away the trophies, he argued, and Ronaldo’s relentless ambition might once have been used against him. Instead, the silverware validated everything — the goals, the ego, the obsession with being decisive.

That is the crossroads where this Ballon d’Or race now sits. Spain’s champions, Bayern’s ruthless No.9, PSG’s European kings, Kvaratskhelia’s artistry and Mbappe’s unresolved quest all collide in one question: whose season truly defined the game at its highest level?

The answer will not just decide an award. It will shape which of these stars gets to call this era their own.