Comparing Mohamed Salah’s insane 2024-25 stats to Vini Jr’s ‘Ballon d’Or’ numbers of 2023-24

Nestor Watach • 31 Dec 2024

So far in the 2024-25 campaign, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has matched Vinicius Junior’s “Ballon d’Or worthy” tally of goals and assists from last season – and we’re not even at the halfway stage.

This season, Salah is scoring and assisting at an outrageously prolific rate that puts the rest of Europe’s star attackers to shame.

He’s even notching goal contributions at a more prolific rate than Luis Suarez back in 2013-14 – the benchmark for modern-day individual ridiculousness.

Liverpool’s Egyptian King is deservedly the early favourite to claim the Ballon d’Or in 2025, which would make him only the second African footballer in history – after George Weah way back in 1995 – to claim football’s most prestigious individual accolade.

In the Premier League alone, Salah has 17 goals and 13 assists from just 18 appearances. Maintain that output in the second half of the season and he’d obliterate the Premier League goals and assist records held by the likes of Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer.

Add in the League Cup and Champions League and the 32-year-old has 20 goals and 17 assists in all competitions.

To put that in context, Salah now has as many combined goals and assists as Vinicius Junior (25 goals, 12 assists) managed in a season that many felt should have won him the Ballon d’Or.

There are still 20 Premier League games to go, as well as the FA Cup and Champions League knockout stages to come. It’s not inconceivable that Salah ends the 2024-25 campaign with over double the number of goals and assists that Vinicius notched last term.

It is worth remembering, though, that Vinicius won both the La Liga title and Champions League last season and scored a number of clutch goals in both – including in Real Madrid’s victory over Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final.

Salah and Liverpool haven’t won anything yet so far this season, and while they’re looking formidable on all fronts, the Ballon d’Or is usually decided on which players stand up with big performances at the business end of the campaign. Let’s wait and see what happens there.

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Here’s how Salah’s stats in 2024-25 compare to Vinicius’ last season: