If your most important football maintenance is the Premier League every week, you will undoubtedly already have Mohamed Salah down if you are shoo-in for the balloon d'Or.
It is a safe prediction, but there is another formidable winger, who in particular had a sizzling start until 2025, giving Salah a run for his money in Ousmane Dembele.
The Paris Saint-Germain Forward was the same as Lionel Messi's record of 17 goals in the first two months of a calendar year last week, and surpassed Cristiano Ronaldo's best record (16) for January and February in the trial.
Salah and Dembele come face to face this week in the Champions League; A competition that can have a huge influence on their entries for the largest player prize of 2025. Here, Sky Sports assesses their chances …
Ousmane Dembele
This has undoubtedly been Dembele's best season so far at the age of 27 and there are several reasons why it all comes together at the right time: a new tactical role, more responsibility, good management and the maturity of Dembele.
He has always been enormously talented, but his game was about balancing all his assets – dribbling, assists and goals – in a consistent, end product. Luis Enrique and his staff helped him to do this, and he responded by taking responsibility for the space that has been fired by Kylian Mbappe and are more selfish, while working like a false nine and on the right wing.
The result was 18 goals in 22 Ligue 1 performances, with five assists, and six more goals and an assist in the Champions League, which means that he has a total of 26 goals and six assists during 33 performances in all competitions above his earlier best season, when he scored 14 goals and seven assists in 2018-19.
For France, Dembele played and scored against Belgium during their UEFA Nations League campaign in four of their six games. He will be prominent later this month in their quarterfinals with Croatia and can help his offer on the Ballon d'Or enormously if he sends France to the title of the Nations League.
PSG employees become of the opinion that if Dembele PSG can continue navigating outside Liverpool to the last phases of the Champions League, instead of Salah, he will catapult himself directly to the front of the queue for the price.
Former France and Bordeaux -midfielder Rio Mavuba recently told FootmerCato in France that if it were up to him, Dembele would already choose Salah. He said: “Today I choose Ousmane Dembele. Why because he is increasing a level and he is younger. But even from the perspective of a coach I would still go with Dembele, because he succeeds in being decisive, even at important moments.”
His former manager at Stade Rennais also recently noticed: “He has completely taken on the leadership of the attacking game of Paris. I am not surprised, just proud of him and very happy for him, because I know it weighed that he does not end better. Nowadays we can feel that he is completely liberated and fulfilled by the way he is used.”
Mohamed Salah
Salah is demonstrably the clear leader and undoubtedly the chances for the Ballon d'Or, at the moment, after he has so far raised his best shape for a new amazing campaign, so that Liverpool was set for the Premier League title in the first season of Arne Slot.
Probably the umbrella stat that best transfers its impact is the percentage of the points that have only offered his goals and assists; About 33 from the 67 of the Reds. That is slightly less than half on 49.3 percent, much further than any other Premier League player.
On 32, to score 25 goals and 17 assists in the competition is amazing, especially when you consider how many seasons he had operated on at such a high level – and everything while the uncertainty of an expiring contract hangs over him.
In the Champions League he has half the number of goals that Dembele does (3) but three more assists, while his efforts in the Carabao Cup means that he is currently 30 goals and 22 assists in all competitions so far this season – for Dembele.
Last month in Villa Park, Salah was the same as his own Lionel Messi record by scoring and helping in 10 different competitions in one season in the five biggest competitions in Europe, only he did it within seven months, while Messi did it in 10.
Slot recently admitted that, historically, the Ballon d'Or winner must also win silverware, and with both Liverpool and PSG his way to their respective competitions, a medal of a Champions League winner who could be the clincher.
“It's not just about the number of prizes you win, but most of those who have won the competition of Champions League,” said the Dutchman. “But football is always like that – you need the team to win an individual prize. But Mo understands that. It is mainly about attackers, but the last winner was a midfielder. Well done Mo is in discussion, because that means he is doing well and that means that we are doing well. In general, someone who has to win the balloon or something.”
The fact 13 of the last 18 Ballon d'Or winners have won the European Elite competition, further gives weight to that prediction.
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