Fans vote for their 2023 Ballon d'Or winner - Messi, Mbappe & Haaland all feature | OneFootball

Following the end of a sensational 2022/23 season, European football's top players have now done all they can to stake their claim for the 2023 Ballon d'Or.

France Football have confirmed that the 30 nominees for this year's men's prize will be announced on September 6, with the winner being crowned at a star-studded ceremony at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on October 30.

While the shortlist will be made up of 30 players, only a handful of stars have been consistently brilliant enough over the last 12 months to have a realistic shot at lifting the coveted award.

However, among those highly unlikely to be in serious contention for the trophy is 2022 winner, Karim Benzema.

The 35-year-old striker - who will join Saudi Pro League side Al-Ittihad on July 1 - endured an injury-hit final season at Real Madrid and also missed out on France's World Cup campaign as a result of his fitness woes.

While Benzema couldn't follow up his heroics from the 2021/22 season, plenty of other superstars have enjoyed career-defining moments this term.

Many of those players represent Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, who swept away all before them to land a historic treble of trophies in 2022/23.

So when the PopFoot Twitter account asked its followers to submit their top 10 nominations for the 2023 Ballon d'Or, it was not surprising to see a number of players from the Etihad Stadium ranked highly.

As you can see in the tweet below, the voting worked on a sliding scale, with the number one ranked player on every ballot being awarded 20 points.

The points awarded were then reduced by two for every position afterwards; i.e. 2nd place = 18 points, 3rd = 16 points, 4th = 14 points and so on.

As you'll see from the final rankings below, it was a close-run thing at the head of the voting with just 94 points separating the top two.

Fans rank the top 10 contenders for the 2023 Ballon d'Or

The likes of Benzema, Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski all miss out on a top 10 berth, while no less than five Man City players make the cut.

Kylian Mbappe, Golden Boot winner at the 2022 World Cup, ranks third overall in PopFoot's poll with a total of 4,170 points. While that's a more than respectable tally, the Paris Saint-Germain star still finished 834 points shy of the top two.

In pretty much any other season, Erling Haaland's ridiculous record of 52 goals in 53 games for Man City would make him a shoo-in for the Ballon d'Or, especially when you consider his team's overall success.

That said, Lionel Messi's campaign was highly impressive too. Aside from landing a second-successive Ligue 1 title with PSG, the Argentine icon also cemented his legacy by lifting the World Cup in Qatar back in December.

Ultimately, though, PopFoot voters gave the edge to Haaland by a mere 94 points.

The battle for the 2023 Ballon d'Or is essentially a two-horse race - and it promises to be one of the closest we've seen in years.