What Ousmane Dembélé Must Achieve for Shocking Ballon d’Or Upset Over Mo Salah, Raphinha | OneFootball

Since the start of 2025, Ousmane Dembélé has been on a scoring spree. The French winger has netted 13 goals so far, including two in Friday night’s match against AS Monaco at the Parc des Princes.

For his first goal, Dembélé linked up with Désiré Doué inside the box, finishing past Radosław Majecki at the near post. His second came after a perfect assist from Nuno Mendes, with Dembélé calmly slotting the ball home.

Overall, the Frenchman has scored 21 goals while recording six assists in 27 matches across all competitions. With the forward’s form in 2025, the question is now being asked, can he become a surprise candidate for the Ballon d’Or?

Has Ousmane Dembélé entered the Ballon d’Or conversation?

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On the latest episode of PSG Talking, CBS Sports’ Jonathan Johnson touched on what will be needed for Dembélé to be a threat to win the prestigious award and shock the football world.

“He’d have to maintain this form,” Johnson said. “… I think in order for him to actually really stand a chance of potentially winning it, I think we have to be talking about PSG potentially going, if not all the way, then all the way, at least to the Champions League final and him being, perhaps not single-handedly the reason for that, but being one of the two or three key protagonists in PSG’s performance at that level…

“I do think that there is a chance that somebody like Dembélé could get himself into Ballon d’Or contention, especially in a year where there’s no obvious international tournament that could potentially shape the decision-makers’ thinking. So I think if he can continue to perform the way that he has been so far this year with PSG and also extend that form to international duty with France as well, he could be a surprise candidate for sure.”

GOAL recently spotlighted the favorites to win the Ballon d’Or with Mohamed Salah and Raphinha ranking as the top two candidates while former PSG ace Kylian Mbappé coming in as the fifth favorite. Meanwhile, GOAL put Dembélé at No. 17 in the ranking of players that could win the award.