🏆 Ballon d'OneFootball: Spain's Rolls Royce finishes in 3rd | OneFootball

Welcome to the 2024 Ballon d'OneFootball.

Over the next 10 days, we will be counting down our top 10 men's footballers in the world right now, before revealing the winner on 27 July 2024.

You can read here how we voted for this year's award.

And here is our list so far.

Today we continue with...

3rd: Rodri, Manchester City and Spain

Goals in 2023/24: 9

Assists in 2023/24: 14

Trophies won in 2023/2024: Premier League, Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup, EURO 2024

Highest ranking among voters: EN 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿/ FR 🇫🇷/ PT-BR 🇧🇷/ IT 🇮🇹 (2nd)

Why were they nominated?

Rodri has been the best midfielder in the world for some time now and took his game to another level over 2023/24.

The Manchester City man went unbeaten for 73 consecutive games for club and country, with that remarkable run ending in the FA Cup final against Manchester United.

Put simply, City and Spain would not be the same without Rodri - he makes great teams even greater.

Best moment since the start of 2023/24?

Rodri put in plenty of Rolls Royce performances over the past term but arguably his biggest contribution to Manchester City's title win came in February.

Pep Guardiola's side were a goal down to Chelsea and had been consistently knocking on the Blues door without finding a way through.

But with eight minutes of the game remaining, the Spanish midfielder netted a crucial equaliser that would keep them level on points with Arsenal.

Without that draw, who knows what might have happened come May.