The original source of the image
Best race between Bellingham, Mbappe and Halland on the Ballon d'Or?
England star Jude Bellingham is the favourite for the 2024 Ballon d'Or, suggesting that the monopoly of new duo Haaland and Mbappe will not go as many have predicted.
Lionel Messi was crowned the eighth Ballon d'Or of his career, and the Argentine star admitted that his retirement day was approaching and insisted that Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, his presumed successors to the presumed award.
Messi, Jude Bellingham, has not nominated the Real Madrid star despite his quality and recent brilliance, and Mbappe and Haland can no longer repeat the monopoly double as Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo once were.
Now, a third contender has entered the fray, Jude Bellingham, and the Real star is likely to win next year's Ballon d'Or.
Battle of Mbappe and Halland
The world of football over the past 15 years has turned its sights towards Haaland and Mbappe, the only two goals in the world who can approach the numbers previously achieved by Messi and Ronaldo.
Mbappe is Paris Saint-Germain's top scorer, while Haaland broke the Premier League goal record last season, and is on course to break a number of important Champions League achievements.
Mbappe, with his glamorous final touches, is very much the same and unstoppable goal. He led his side to the Ligue 1 title with a glittering career at the end of last season, scored a hat-trick in his second World Cup final at 23, and returned to team training after 72 hours.
On the other side Haaland, bigger, stronger and faster than any other player, the Norwegian is an ideal combination of sport and intelligence and a footballer of this size has never found very small spaces. He has scored 52 goals easily and won a historic treble for Manchester City, setting many English records.
Over the next 10 years, Haaland and Mbappe will score a lot of goals, win a lot of awards, both collective and individual. This is enough for journalists and social media to raise the challenge, competition and compare them for the Ballon d'Or.
Bellingham outperformed his rivals
Bellingham presented, a distinctive level that forced everyone to focus with him and nominate him as a true competitor, and there was reason to believe that he could be a nominee for the award, but with Haaland and Mbappe scoring at a frightening rate and a few players of the same age also excited across Europe that day seemed to be far away.
Things have changed, dramatically to Bellingham's numbers, with Real Madrid so far this season better than both of their main rivals for the 2024 Ballon d'Or, with the England midfielder scoring 14 goals and setting up six goals for club and country with more contributions from both Mbappe and Halland.
His performance in the big games increases his credentials, scoring a lethal double in his first Clasico to set up Real Madrid and netting a last-minute goal over Union Berlin in the Champions League, a crucial combination.
Some saw Bellingham's team as worse than in recent seasons after Karim Benzema's departure. Not signing a substitute and thus hindering Real Madrid's ability to score goals as previously But beyond the Bellingham level, Real Long are top of La Liga and have won all three of their Champions League games so far. and Bellingham not only filled a benzema vacuum, but also improved the team's production.
Although Real Madrid earned three bonus points at this stage last season, the goal difference is better, Benzema, last season scored only seven goals and one assist and Bellingham almost doubled his goal tally, despite playing as Anchelotti's new midfield number 10.
What should Bellingham do?
The question now is will Bellingham be able to continue at his current level? He was supported by Ancelotti to score 20 goals this season after the Clasico at the weekend, but in fact, he is likely to reach that figure before the start of the iron year and therefore, his first season could reach 30 goals.
But there is a feeling that he will slow down at some point, who can say that he will not be able to reach 40 goals this season?.
Bellingham's 13 goals for Real Madrid came from just 19 attempts at goal. He is not a player who misses chances or forces himself to move in front areas and if there is criticism that most of Bellingham's goals were from close range. no matter how spectacular the equalizer was in Clasico and Naples, Bellingham scores from the places available to score.
But what is the ideal formula, which keeps him in the race? Both Mbappe and Haaland can score 40 goals while leading their team to titles and Mbappe's Paris Saint-Germain are almost certain to win the Ligue 1, while France are the current favourites for Euro 2024, and Haaland's Manchester City should also be considered the Premier League favourite, and will set their eyes on repeating the Champions League achievement.
But Bellingham's Real Madrid will find it much more difficult to win La Liga, with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid competing at the start of the season, and if they win La Liga and finish Bellingham, first on the league's top scorer list and captained England in the European Championship is the minimum required for the young star to maintain his current golden ball lead.
Midfielders and Golden Ball
Bellingham's position, difficult because of the bias directed against non-attackers in the Ballon d'Or vote and the lack of midfielders and defenders on the list of candidates or winners of the award was evident.
Luca Modric won the award in 2018, but controversially apart from Virgil van Dijk approaching the award in 2019, this award has been almost exclusive to the most attacking players in recent years.
Andrés Iniesta and Xavi took the podium at various stages in early 2010, but never received more than 17% of the vote until Kaka, in his 2007 winning season, received the award while serving as Milan's second forward and Modric was the first player since Zinedine Zidane, in 1998, to win as a typical quarterback.
Bellingham, of course, is not a regular and for the Madrid team, he does not play in the same way as Xavi, Iniesta, Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard, but he will still face an uphill battle because of the nature of his position.
Historically, the award is not for English players either. Michael Owen won the Ballon d'Or in 2001, and Kevin Keegan, who was the star of Hamburg in 1971, accepted him as the English player who won the award, so a Bellingham victory would not be easy.
Bellingham is the real hero!
Bellingham, still only 20 years old and has at least another six years at Real Madrid, should be supported to improve as a footballer during that period.
The player has already admitted that he has evolved over the last three months since wearing a Real Madrid shirt and theoretically, this is not even the best version of Bellingham.
The same can of course be said of Haaland, where Pep Guardiola has a track record of improving players and encouraging them to develop in influential ways. He used Messi for the first time as a mock striker and now encourages most of Europe to turn their full-back around and can turn Haaland into a historic goalscorer.
Mbappe may be evolving, as well as his supposed arrival in Madrid soon will change much in his style and he is not 25 years old, so there is much future ahead of him.
But while Mbappe and Haaland are known, Bellingham can still become what he wants. He wore number 22 with Birmingham City and Borussia Dortmund because he can play in multiple positions such as number 4, number 8 or number 10.
Bellingham is the front-runner for the 2024 Ballon d'Or award, and could be overtaken by Mbappe or Haaland by the time we get to July, but if that doesn't happen next year, the preference for the young Real Madrid star is likely.
It became clear that Messi and Ronaldo had lifted their last golden balls and Mbappe, Halland and now Bellingham were set to dominate the award in the coming years.