In all competitions, Messi has 27 goals and 24 assists and is hoping to lead Barcelona to its first Champions League title since its treble win in the 2014-15 season. For Lionel Messi, that’s business as usual.

For any player, that’s the season of a lifetime. Along with those 22 goals, Messi has 20 assists in the league so far, beating his own personal record of 18 in a season and totaling 42 goal contributions in 30 league games. Despite missing Barcelona’s first four games of the season due to injury, Messi is likely to win La Liga top scorer for the seventh time in his career with 22 goals so far and three games left to play. In fact, sensational stats and seasons have become second nature for him. La Pulga Atómica (the Atomic Flea) has remained at the top of this list for over a decade now, and at 33, he’s still going strong. But without further ado, here are whom I believe to be the top 10 players in the world right now based on both form and natural ability when fit. I tried to take into account each player’s current form as well as his overall ability when fit, but there is always going to be an arbitrary nature to ranking when so many players have played so well. Also, due to the stop in play and the fact that there are many players who could be in the conversation for the best players in the world at the moment, the list naturally becomes more subjective towards the bottom.

Therefore, the placement of the two Ligue 1 players on this list is both somewhat subjective and arbitrary and could have been entirely different had those players had the rest of their season to play. It’s also important to preface this list with the fact that, while most leagues recommenced after the forced hiatus, the French Ligue 1 did not restart. However, due to constant fluctuations in form as well as the fact that soccer stopped altogether for a few months in the middle of the season, this list may be controversial in some ways. Although there is no one correct answer, most of the players on this list have been objectively the best players in the world this past season.

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