The Ballon d’Or is the most prestigious individual award in the world of football; with that in mind let us have a look at the top three contenders for the 2022 Women’s Ballon D’Or – Alexia Putellas, Sam Kerr, vs Beth Mead stats
French newsmagazine France Football magazine gives away the Ballon d’Or annually to the world’s best footballers since 1956.
Alexia Putellas vs Sam Kerr And Beth Mead Stats, Goals And Records List
Alexia Putellas is leading a L'Équipe vote on this year’s Ballon d'Or Féminin winner 🏆
The Barcelona star is up against the likes of Sam Kerr, Beth Mead and Wendie Renard 👀
Who’s your winner? ⬇️
— GiveMeSportW (@GiveMeSportW) October 10, 2022
The top 20 list of players who made the cut includes some of the sport’s biggest names like Vivianne Miedema, Ada Hegerberg and Alex Morgan.
However, undoubtedly, the top three contenders for the Ballon d’Or 2022 are Alexia Putellas, Sam Kerr, and Beth Mead.
Alexia Putellas
Alexia Putellas is the reigning Ballon d’Or winner who has once again topped the list of candidates.
The Spanish footballer missed out on this summer’s Euros after injuring her ACL days before the tournament. However, she made the most of the first half of the year as a domineering force for Barcelona.
In the 2021/2022 season, Putellas scored an amazing 18 goals and a league-high 15 assists. She went a long way in helping her side secure its third-straight Primera División title.
Across all competitions, Putellas has scored 34 goals en route to a domestic treble with Barcelona. The club also advanced to the Women’s Champions League final thanks to her efforts.
Although Barcelona did not win the finals, finishing as the runner-up to Lyon, Putellas was named the tournament’s best player and also its top scorer with 11 goals.
She is also Spain’s most-capped player with 100 appearances, scoring four goals through seven appearances in 2022.
Sam Kerr
Sam Kerr recently earned her second consecutive Golden Boot in the Women’s Super League last season. She helped her club Chelsea to win a third straight league title and second straight FA Cup.
She scored an amazing tally of 29 goals in 31 club appearances during the 2021/2022 season.
Following this impressive performance, she won the WSL Player of the Season, FWA Footballer of the Year, PFA Players’ Player of the Year and PFA Fans’ Player of the Year.
She also did not shy away for her country, scoring five goals in Australia’s opening match of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup group stage.
With those five goals, she surpassed Tim Cahill’s 50 international goals to hold the Australian international goal-scoring record.
Sam further added two more goals through the team’s remaining three games. Unsurprisingly, she went on to win the Golden Boot for the tournament with seven goals through four games.
Beth Mead
Beth Mead’s impressive run at the Euros helped England secure its first-ever title. The star forward scored six goals and bagged five assists to win the Golden Boot.
On top of that, she also was named as the player of the tournament. Her performances marked a sharp improvement for a player who failed to make the England’s Olympic team roster in 2021.
So far, she has made 15 appearances for England this year, scoring 13 goals in that span. Mead also impressed for her club Arsenal, where she scored 12 goals in 26 appearances.
It includes 11 goals in the WSL — third-most behind Miedema and Kerr. She also bagged eight assists which tied for the most in the league alongside Ella Toone. She now has a career total of 36 assists which is an all-time high in the WSL.
Mead was named Arsenal’s player of the season.
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