Rodrygo ranks among the world’s top 30 footballers – but the Real Madrid star must become a reliable match-winner to earn Ballon d’Or recognition

Rodrygo is one of the 30 best football players in the world, but the Real Madrid star needs to start winning more games to be the Ballon d’Or winner.

The smart Brazilian has complained that he wasn’t considered for the 2024 award, but he needs to step up his game to be noticed.

Rodrygo was ɱad, but he showed it in a way that famous people do these days: by posting a bunch of confusing messages to his Instagram story. It was later reported that the Brazilian wasn’t on the 30-person shortlist for the 2024 Ballon d’Or for men. He later told ESPN that he was “upset” about this.

It’s true that some people have taken his words way too seriously. Rodrygo wasn’t nitpicky or aggrҽssive, and he didn’t call out anyone else who got ahead of him, even if he had a good reason to. He just admitted what most people already know to be true: he is one of the 30 best football players in the world.

But it’s one thing to have the skills or even the numbers to get on the list of names. It’s quite another to have the gravitas to bҽat out the other people. These days, kids probably call it “aura,” but the Brazilian, no matter how great he is as a football player, has never quite done enough to carry the kind of star power that would be appropriate for someone of his caliber.

Rodrygo is often ignored because he is so good at doing a lot of different things in the final third of the field. He plays on teams with a lot of other talented players, which can be a problem. He also doesn’t have a signature moment, and until he does something that shows he is great, he might not get the Ballon d’Or recognition he wants.

Part of the problem is that people don’t really understand what a player needs to do to win the sport’s most prized individual award. After the 2021–22 season, the rules changed, but in general, players are chosen by a vote based on a number of factors. Judges are told to look at how each player does over the course of a season more than anything else. After that comes team success; in theory, the two go hand in hand.

People used to be asked to think about a player’s whole career when they cast their votes. That would explain, for example, why Cristiano Ronaldo was one of the 30 choices for the 2021–22 season, even though he only scored 18 Premier League goals for a Manchester United team that was pretty bad. That was thrown out, though. In theory, it’s all about the last season now.