🏆 Ballon d'OneFootball: And our winner is ... | OneFootball

Welcome to the fourth annual edition of the Ballon d’OneFootball as we begin our countdown of the top 25 players in the world right now. Here’s an explainer how we decided on a top 25.

Here’s the list so far.

And today we have …

1st: Erling Haaland, Manchester City and Norway

(Last year: 7th)

It had to be him, didn’t it?

Erling Haaland’s first season as a Manchester City player has been a relative success – just the three trophies and 52 goals.

There are always going to be doubts about whether a player can translate their abilities from one league to another and there might have been a few questions about what the Norwegian was going to do when he completed his £51m to the Etihad from Borussia Dortmund last summer.

It took him just 65 minutes to put those doubts to bed after he bagged a brace on his Premier League debut against West Ham.

The records were to follow.

Two hat-tricks in the space of four days against Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest made him the fastest player to score two-hat tricks. He hit three again in the very next home game, the Manchester derby, meaning he became the first player in the league’s history to score hat-tricks in three successive home matches.

A brace in his first Champions League game for City against Sevilla saw him become the first player to reach the 25 goal mark in just 20 appearances.

He was not done there as after the World Cup the 22-year-old sprung to like.

Five goals against RB Leipzig in the last-16 of the Champions League saw him tie with Lionel Messi and Luiz Adriano for most goals scored in a single game in the competition.

He now holds the record for highest amount of goals scored in a Premier League campaign, breaking Andy Cole’s record after hitting 36.

It probably would’ve been easier to name the records Haaland hasn’t broken.

An individual debut campaign that is barely believable that led to his team winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League.

There were some question marks over whether Haaland’s inclusion inhibited this City team, that the players would have to get used to playing with a striker again and he would affect their build-up play.

Nobody is saying that anymore.

Haaland has made Pep Guardiola’s well-oiled machine that one step better.

The perfect team had the perfect year propelled by a close-to-perfect player.

Click here for every player named so far and their profiles.