Welcome back, fellow eagles, to the place where you can find out about events happening in the football world! If you're into football, you’re in the right place! Allow me to introduce myself once again: My name is Luis Alfonso Lacayo, and you are reading AST's very own Football Feed. To start off this year we will be talking about the following topics: The Ballon d’or results, The best performing players (as of the time of writing this article), and finally the top 3 upcoming talents in the football world.

The prestigious Ballon D’or ceremony took place on Monday, September 22 at 1:30 pm (Honduras time). As many of you may know, the Ballon D’or was given to the leading talisman representing both France and PSG, Ousmane Dembele. A couple of people felt it should have been either Lamine Yamal or Raphinha who lifted the award. Although, I understand that Raphinha had better stats than Dembele and Lamine had a flashier campaign, you can’t win the Ballon D’or (these days) without winning the UEFA Champions League. Dembele was very consistent throughout the Champions League campaign. This is surprising because this season he transitioned from being a winger to a striker. This is a very hard transition for any player (just look at Mbappe for example). Now Raphinha was both the top-goalscorer and top assister in the Champions League, but due to the fact that he did not win it, his campaign lost a strong factor. Now for Lamine Yamal, let's be honest, when was the last time we saw a Ballon D’or winner with less than 45 G/A? These days, you need a lot more than flashy dribbling and great control to be named the best player in the world.

This season has started in a very particular way, for the first time in a while we have many players dominating their leagues (in most of the top 5 leagues). For example, Mbappe is destroying every club in La Liga, he has an impressive 14 goals and 2 assists in only 10 games. Haaland isn’t lacking behind either, he has also been tearing things up in the Premier League with 12 goals and 1 assist in 9 games. Finally, we have Bayern Munich’s very own, Harry Kane, who has a jaw dropping 18 goals and 3 assists in only 10 games! It is evident that the quality of these three players is above all the rest. If Haaland, Mbappe, and Kane keep performing like this, we might just have a very entertaining fight for the Champions League this season. 

These days it is pretty easy to find incredible wonder kids in the world of football. It seems like ever since Lamine Yamal arrived there have been so many wonderkids trying to live up to his stature. Some world class examples are Arda Guler and Kenan Yildiz (both 20 years old). They are both showing signs of becoming ballon d’or contending players, Arda Guler for example has now been able to thrive and gain minutes on the pitch. This has happened due to Xabi Alonso’s arrival as Real Madrid manager, under his system Arda Guler has become a vital player for Real Madrid. Now as for Yildiz, his story is a little different, he has been arguably Juventus best player for a while now, proving that age is really just a number. Arda Guler has 3 goals and 5 assists in 12 games, while Yildiz has 2 goals and 4 assists in 10 games. Considering that their careers in Europe have just started to take off these are very respectable numbers.

In conclusion, a very exciting season is ahead and things are only going to get better and better from here on out. By the end of this season we could have new Ballon D’or, Champions League, and World Cup winners. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this article.