Ballon d'Or 2024 Contenders: Rodri, Yamal, Kane, and Mbappe
In World Cup years, the unofficial crown of “best player on the planet” usually lands on the head of a man holding a global trophy. Spain’s triumph in North America has shifted the spotlight accordingly, and two of their leading lights are right in the thick of the debate.
Rodri, already a Ballon d’Or winner in 2024, stands there as the metronome of a dominant Spain and a new Barcelona era. Alongside him, Lamine Yamal, the teenage phenomenon now installed at Camp Nou, has surged from prodigy to genuine contender. Their summer on American soil has dragged the conversation away from the usual suspects and into Spanish colours again.
Harry Kane refuses to disappear from that picture. Sixty-one goals for Bayern Munich last season is a number that screams Ballon d’Or credentials, the kind of output that normally flattens arguments. Yet the missing line on his résumé remains brutal: no Champions League in 2026. In an era where the biggest individual prize is so often chained to the biggest club trophy, that failure to get over the line still weighs heavily.
Paris Saint-Germain did not have that problem. Back-to-back Champions League titles have turned Parc des Princes into the epicentre of the modern power game. Ousmane Dembele has ridden that wave, and a second straight Golden Ball for a PSG player is no fantasy. It might even be a teammate who climbs higher than him. The French champions are now so stacked with talent that any one of several stars could turn a stellar European run into personal glory.
Mbappe Debate
Bacary Sagna thinks the next man to do it should not be the obvious one.
Speaking to GOAL, the former Arsenal, Manchester City and France defender was asked whether Kylian Mbappe, widely regarded as the most devastating forward of his generation, deserves the Ballon d’Or as the best player in the world right now. His answer swerved away from the expected script.
“For me the best at the minute, he's in the top three,” Sagna said of Mbappe. “He had an amazing year and he is for me one of the best. But being a striker gives more chances to score, so more chances for the people to look at him favourably.”
Then came the twist.
“For me, Kvara deserves the Ballon d'Or. For me, Kvara [Khvicha Kvaratskhelia] has been phenomenal and being a winger and having such an impact and successful campaign. Apart from winning the Champions League, I think football players will agree that Kvara was the most important player last season.”
It is a bold claim in an age dominated by goalscoring metrics and highlight reels built around central strikers. Yet Sagna kept circling back to impact, not just numbers.
He did not dismiss Mbappe. Far from it.
“Of course Kylian had an amazing World Cup and I was pleased to see him scoring so many goals, not only because he's French but because I love football and when I see him shining the way he's starting the season, that's his standard, that's his level and he is in the top few players. He might be the top, the best player in the world, but the problem is how impactful were you for your team last season?”
That last question cuts right to the heart of the Mbappe paradox.
On a personal level, his move to Real Madrid has delivered numbers that would once have guaranteed the Ballon d’Or. Two La Liga Golden Boots. Ninety goals in 106 appearances. Those are Galactico statistics in the purest sense.
Yet the club have gone two seasons without a major trophy.
For a player who left Paris to escape the narrative that he could not conquer Europe, the irony is impossible to ignore. At PSG, he walked away just before they finally cracked the Champions League code. At Madrid, the club built for these nights, the finals have vanished from view.
Louis Saha, another former France international, can feel the weight of that storyline building around his countryman. Asked by GOAL whether Mbappe will ever get his hands on the Ballon d’Or, he did not pretend the path is straightforward.
“That's a difficult one, because for sure he wants to win those trophies,” Saha said. “He knows that by winning the Champions League, you have a greater chance to win the Ballon d'Or. He knows that that's the way to put all the qualities in front of the best eyes to be judged.”
The pressure, Saha argued, is no longer just about performance. It is about narrative, timing, and a sense of fate that elite players either embrace or spend a career trying to rewrite.
“I do understand that the pressure is on because now it's been almost a very controversial way of not being in those finals. He left the club that won it and now going to a club which is supposed to be one of the favourites, and they don't reach the finals.
“It's starting to question a little bit on the personal side. Let's say on the spiritual side, he seems to be a black cat in a way. So that's the bad line that he wants to rectify as quickly as possible.”
That image is stark: Mbappe, the generational superstar, cast as a “black cat” in the Champions League. The man who bends games to his will domestically, yet finds himself chasing a ghost on the biggest club stage of all.
Saha still believes the story can flip.
“It's always nice to see someone succeed and reach their goals when they have the potential. I think he deserves it. Regardless of people criticising his style of play, he wants to have everything.
“Every situation needs to be about him and that's the proof of greats. But sometimes if things don’t work out, it's easy to criticise. If Cristiano couldn't convert all these trophies that he had over the years, he would have been doomed a long time ago.”
That comparison with Cristiano Ronaldo is telling. Ronaldo built his legend by turning finals into personal showcases. Mbappe has the same hunger, the same insistence on being at the centre of every decisive moment. The difference, for now, lies in the medals.
As Spain’s champions push Rodri and Lamine Yamal to the front of the queue, as Kane chases the one trophy that still eludes him, as PSG’s Champions League machine fuels Dembele and his teammates, Mbappe finds himself in a strange position: one of the game’s undisputed superstars, yet still chasing the defining season that will silence every doubt.
The talent is unquestioned. The numbers are already historic. The question now is brutally simple: when the next Ballon d’Or vote comes around, will Mbappe still be the “black cat” of Europe, or the man who finally bent the Champions League – and the narrative – to his will?
