‘Highly versatile’ Barcelona player is now emerging as a serious Ballon d’Or contender this season | OneFootball

Several players in this FC Barcelona squad have made a leap in their form since the arrival of Hansi Flick on the Blaugrana bench. This is quite clearly the case for veterans like Robert Lewandowski and Inigo Martinez, who are both having a very good season.

Meanwhile, another player who is benefitting to the fullest extent from Flick’s coaching is the Brazilian winger Raphinha, who is proving to be one of the most important players for the Catalan side this season.

He displayed his importance only in the last game against Benfica, as he scored the sole goal scored in this match, even though his side was suffering from a numerical disadvantage.

Overall, he has been scoring and assisting goals with a very high level of consistency, and as Mundo Deportivo has noted, his numbers this season make him one of the most compelling candidates for the next Ballon d’Or.

This season, the Brazilian forward, already touted as a Ballon d’Or candidate and described as a ‘highly versatile’ player by Brazil’s current head coach, Dorival Junior, has scored 25 goals and provided 18 assists. In total, he has been directly involved in 29 of the 40 games he’s played, scoring in 17 of them.

Thus, he has been even more important for his team than Robert Lewandowski, who has more goals than the Brazilian, 33, but has only 3 assists to his name.

Other players who are likely to challenge him for the Ballon d’Or will be the Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah and the Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior. The former is having a spectacular season so far and has 30 goals and 22 assists to his name. Meanwhile, the Merengue star has 17 goals and 12 assists, numbers significantly lower than those of Raphinha.

The Barcelona forward has also been significantly more decisive in the UCL, where he is only one goal behind the top-scorer, Serhou Guirassy, while also having 4 assists. Salah has 3 goals and 4 assists, while Vinicius has 7 goals and 3 assists.