The 2024 Ballon d’Or ceremony will take place later this year on Monday, October 28 in Paris, France.
While the award ceremony is still months away, the football played over the last few weeks and in the coming months is expected to play a key role in deciding who lifts the award later this year.
We have already seen a number of stars being backed as the favourite to win the Ballon d’Or over the last few weeks, including Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappe. However, the current bookies’ favourite is Real Madrid and Brazil winger Vinicius Junior, with odds of 11/10.
2024 Ballon d’Or odds
Despite the award being an individual prize, club performance across the season does play a major role - see Luka Modric’s win in 2018. As a result, whoever wins the Champions League usually has at least one player with a real chance of securing the Ballon d’Or. As a result, both Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior are among the bookies’ favourites to clinch the prize later this year.
- Vinicius Junior - 11/10
- Jude Bellingham - 5/2
- Kylian Mbappe - 13/2
- Harry Kane - 8/1
- Phil Foden - 16/1
- Toni Kross - 18/1
- Florian Wirtz - 20/1
- Rodri - 20/1
- Lionel Messi - 20/1
- Erling Haaland - 22/1
Vinicius Junior new Ballon d’Or favourite
Despite being only 23 years of age, Vinicius Junior has cemented himself as one of the best wingers in Europe over the last several years. In 2023/24 so far, he has found the net on 23 occasions and provided 11 assists across 37 games for Real Madrid.
This is an impressive record but it is still significantly lower than both Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane. The latter has 45 goals and 12 assists for Bayern Munich, while Mbappe has 44 goals and 10 assists in 47 games for PSG. Given Kane is an out-and-out centre-forward, he is expected to score more than a traditional winger such as Vinicius. However, Mbappe, like the Brazilian, is a natural left-winger but has still managed to score nearly double the South American this term.
So why is Vinicius now the new favourite to win the Ballon d’Or over the likes of Mbappe and Kane? Well, as mentioned above, the people who vote for the Ballon d’Or winner often take into account how a player’s club and country do in competitions across the season. In turn, it is easy to see why Vinicius is being backed to win the award despite the likes of Mbappe having a better individual season.
Real Madrid have already won La Liga and they have reached the Champions League final, where they are expected to beat Borussia Dortmund. To reach the final, Los Blancos saw off Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich in the semi-final, while Mbappe’s PSG were knocked out by BVB.
Something similar happened in 2018 when Luka Modric won the award after Real Madrid secured the Champions League and Croatia reached the final of the World Cup. So, while not nailed on, Vinicius has a real shot at picking up his first Ballon d’Or if Madrid go on to beat Dortmund on June 1.
Today’s Football Tips
None of the aforementioned stars are in action today, but there are two key Premier League games taking place, including Manchester United facing off with Newcastle United.
Newcastle United travel away from home to take on Manchester United on Wednesday evening, and we’ve got it covered with our bet builder of the day article, while for those of you looking to place an acca, we have our acca of the day lined up and ready to go.
This week’s best free bets and enhanced offers
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