Cristiano Ronaldo looks most likely to win the Ballon d'Or this time around, with his opponents for the title looking unable to match his overall credentials. There are other strong contenders like Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Antoine Griezman and Gareth Bale, who can give the Real Madrid man a tough fight. Despite that, it seems that the Portugal international might be chosen for a number of reasons.

The first would be because he has scored goals than his fierce rivals. As a scoring winger (he's not a striker), he would get more publicly known by more people, including the captains of the national team. Aside from the other names, only Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez have scored that many goals. Cristiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, has always had the privilege of being the main star of the team, and the team is built around him. The team is there to serve Ronaldo to shine as the brightest star.

That's why Benzema is still on the team because he can complement Ronaldo better than many of his other team-mates at Real Madrid can.

This is also the case of Lionel Messi, but in my opinion, this year his form is not as deadly as Ronaldo Since he had missed two months due to injury and took time to regain his form and especially after the the Portuguese has won 2 major trophies, Champions League and the Euro 2016 Championship.

One more thing, this Ballon D'Or is individual performance, not team performance, Cristiano was a top contender for the golden boot award but missed out to Luis Suarez by a 5 goal margin. He was involved in 66 goals last season ( Goals 51,Assists 16), which puts him in a better position than his Catalan rival Leo Messi who netted 41 times and chipped 21 assists last season.

The only competition Ronaldo would face is from Uruguay's super striker Suarez who was involved in 59 goals and provided 26 assists for the La Liga champions. Gareth Bale, Neymar Jr and Griezmann on the other hand, dont come any closer to these 3 in terms of scoring but they had a huge impact on their respective teams this season.

Both Griezmann and Bale had a wonderful Euro campaign with the Frenchman finishing with the runners-up medal and Bale taking his team to semi-final stages of the Euro campaign this season. Although many players and pundits have already tipped Ronaldo to go ahead and get the "big prize", there is still no guarantee till the title is officially awarded to him.

Despite that, many of the fans in the footballing world feel that it might be a mere formality this time and that the winner is a clear one. What happens next, shall be seen in a few months time.