Harry Kane may well have made it onto the shortlist for the Ballon d’Or 2017, but it’s a long old stretch to imagine that he will be getting his hands on the award. The 30 man shortlist for the award was announced on Monday, October 9th and Kane was one of seven Premier League players on that list along with N’Golo Kante, Eden Hazard, Philippe Coutinho, Sadio Mane, Kevin de Bruyne and David de Gea.
All of them would command a place in anyone’s fantasy football team, but as for one of them going on to pick up the Ballon d’Or this time around, well, that is pure fantasy. At the time of writing after the latest international break, Kane has netted 43 times in 37 appearances for club and country. You are only going to be looking at around a price of 80/1 on him to collect the award.
The 30 man shortlist is just a token courtesy really because the whole process could be skipped because of Cristiano Ronaldo. He has made the whole thing thoroughly unpredictable this year and Sky Bet have him priced up as 1/33 odds-on favourite to win the award again after picking it up last year for the fourth time. When you look at Lionel Messi as being a 14/1 shot to win an award then no-one else frankly stands a whiff of a chance. That’s without mentioning Neymar as well of course who is a 50/1 shot.
Ronaldo to rule
This is just going to be a procession for Ronaldo and it’s not just about personal achievement, despite this going to the nominated best footballer in the world of the year. Those individual performances have to equate to something greater in the game, like winning silverware, which Cristiano Ronaldo has done plenty of during his glittering career and Harry Kane, well not so much.
Ronaldo helped Real Madrid win both La Liga and retain the Champions League trophy this year and also this year he became the first player ever to get to 100 goals in UEFA club competition and he scored his 100th Champions League goal in the quarter finals last year. He also became the first player to reach 50 goals in the knockout stage of the competition. Then in the summer, he became the all-time top scorer in the top five European League, beating the record of Jimmy Greaves.
Not enough? Well in the Champions League final he scored his 600th pro-career goal and he was the first man to ever score in three Champions League finals. He also played his part in the first leg of helping Real Madrid destroy rivals Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup this season.
Not even Messi can match up to what Ronaldo has produced this year and that makes the Ballon d’Or 2017 a foregone conclusion. Between himself and Messi they have split the last nine Ballon d’Or titles between them. There is going to be another one on the way for Ronaldo soon.