Raphinha’s Case for the Ballon d’Or

The 2025 Ballon d’Or debate is wide open. As Barcelona chase a historic treble, we analyse how Raphinha is making a statistical case for himself.

There’s a power vacuum at the top of world football. Between 2011 and 2017, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo finished first and second in Ballon d’Or voting. After Luka Modric’s win in 2018, Messi then won three of the next four. The dominance between the pair made the Ballon d’Or feel less like an award and more like an inevitability.

If the football they produced wasn’t so entertaining, it might have felt like we were trapped inside a broken machine that kept referring back to itself, unable to think of anything new.

But now, with their peaks fading into the past, things feel different. There is debate again. The great debate in 2024 was between Vinícius Júnior and Rodri, giving us new characters and storylines.

With Rodri injured and Vini Jr. now sharing the spotlight with Kylian Mbappé, the conversation has splintered even further.

Mohamed Salah looked primed for the award, but will Liverpool’s Champions League exit at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain affect that? Could Harry Kane sneak into discussions on the sheer force of his goalscoring statistics? Can Mbappé exorcise the ghosts of his Paris years and finally win it all?

What about an outsider?

What about Raphinha?

For several years now, Barcelona have been making more noise off the field than on it. They could still summon world class moments, sure, but as far as sustaining the kind of form that produces a Ballon d’Or winner, they were nowhere close.

This season might be different.

Raphinha is having a historically good campaign under Hansi Flick, and if they keep it up, he might be the player to beat in this year’s voting.

Barcelona are in the hunt for a treble. They brushed Benfica aside in the Champions League, booking their place in the quarter-finals. They also sit top of La Liga and have a game in hand over both Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. Their Copa del Rey semi-final against Atlético is very much in the balance after a wild 4-4 draw in the first leg.

Three trophies could be theirs, and one man is at the heart of it all…

The Case For Raphinha

Raphinha has 44 goal contributions in all competitions this season. Only Salah (54) has more among players in Europe’s top five leagues, and he’s played 300 minutes more than the Brazilian. They are also the only two in the top 10 for both expected goals and expected assists this season.

Raphinha is arguably the continent’s best creator at the moment. No player in Europe’s top five leagues has created more chances this season than his 116, while his expected assists (12.3) is bettered only by Rayan Cherki, Michael Olise and Joshua Kimmich. Oh, but Raphinha has also created more big chances (38) and open-play chances (91) than anyone.

To play against him this season is to be haunted by his driving runs and curling left-footed crosses, his ability to ask questions of the best defenders in the world.

Raphinha’s Champions League campaign is already historic. Raphinha has 16 goal involvements (11 goals, five assists) in just 835 minutes. Not even Messi in 2011-12 could top that (10 goals and five assists across 990 minutes). In fact, if you exclude penalties – which seems fair as he doesn’t take them – Raphinha’s total is already the best return by a Barcelona player in a single Champions League season.

And he isn’t done yet. Granted, with the new expanded format, he’s had more opportunities to score, but if he continues at this pace he could genuinely set a record for the most non-penalty goal involvements in a Champions League campaign. That’s the rarefied air Raphinha is breathing right now

The Context Behind Barcelona’s Season

In attack, Barcelona have been a juggernaut this season. They have scored 128 goals in 42 games to date, which equates to 3.05 goals per game. Nobody has scored more than them or has a higher average goals-per-game rate.

Hansi Flick is overseeing something of a renaissance at Barcelona, liberating his team from the constraints of Xavi’s rigid positional play. The German coach prefers a more relational style, encouraging players to interpret the game with greater freedom and fluidity.

Raphinha is a winger by name but a floating forward in every other sense.

Against Benfica, on a night he added two goals to his tally this season, he was everywhere across the 90 minutes and nowhere for long.

This season, Raphinha has spent more time operating from the left flank, helping to solve a longstanding issue for Barcelona that has lingered since Neymar’s departure.

He has never been the best at standing up a defender and taking them on like, say, Lamine Yamal or Lionel Messi, and so it’s not a traditional winger’s role he plays.

Instead, Flick has found a more fluid solution. Robert Lewandowski often drifts into the right-hand channel, creating space centrally for Raphinha to occupy the centre-forward position. From there, the Brazilian becomes a constant menace, ghosting between defenders and looking to time his runs in behind.

Raphinha’s road to this point hasn’t been linear. He made the move to Europe back in 2016 when joining Vitória de Guimarães before going on to Sporting CP and then Rennes. But it was in Yorkshire where he exploded, playing for Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds. There, his high-energy, quick, incisive game drew the attention of much bigger teams.

That version of the Brazilian – scrappy and chaotic – feels like a first draft. Now, at the age of 28, he is one of Barcelona’s captains and the player who makes them tick.

Still, the Ballon d’Or doesn’t only reward greatness — it rewards narrative. Raphinha has the numbers on his side, but to truly strengthen his case, he needs silverware. A trophy — and a defining moment or two on the biggest stage — would help turn a strong campaign into an unignorable one.

Mbappé has narrative on his side. A long-awaited move to Real Madrid, Champions League glory, a potential chance to dump PSG out? The story writes itself.

The race for La Liga and the Champions League could well become a proxy battle in the race for the Ballon d’Or.

Rodri won the award last season as the anchor in Manchester City and Spain’s midfield. His influence was rightly acknowledged and offered a new lens through which the award could be judged.

In this post-Messi/Ronaldo world, there might never be an obvious winner. Raphinha certainly isn’t the obvious choice but he could be a worthy one.

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