Harry Kane has made it to the 30 player shortlist for the 2017 Ballon d’Or award. The winner of the award will be crowned the world’s best player and Kane is one of seven, Premier League players who are among the first 20 names listed on the 30 man shortlist for the award. The other four are Philippe Coutinho, Sadio Mane, Kevin de Bruyne, David de Gea, Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante.
However, the Tottenham and England striker looks a long shot to actually pick up the award after being nominated for it for the first time in his career. At the time of writing, Kane has netted 43 goals in 37 games for Spurs and England combined in the calendar year, but that is unlikely to be enough to get him the award.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the 1/33 odds-on favourite at Ladbrokes to pick up the award again with Lionel Messi at 14/1. If you have Messi at that kind of price then you see how little chance anyone else has of getting the big golden award. Ronaldo claimed the award last year for the fourth time in his career, beating out Messi.
Along with the personal achievements of scoring goals, there of course comes the added influence of those goals actually being translated into trophies. With Real Madrid sweeping the Champions League title again this year along with winning La Liga, along with recording a host of individual records in the Champions League, it is likely that the award is going to be staying in the hands of Ronaldo. While Kane has performed with lethal consistency, the trophies just are not there for him and may not be until he leaves Spurs.
It is a big shortlist which generally counts for nothing. Since 2008 it has been won by either Messi or Ronaldo and only once in those nine editions did they not share the top two spots. That was in 2010 with Messi winning and his Barcelona team mate Andres Iniesta taking second place. Unfortunately for Messi, he hasn’t had the club achievements over the last year with Barcelona that Ronaldo has had with Madrid.
