After a sensational start to the season, has Barcelona's Brazilian ace Neymar done enough to end Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's dominance of the Ballon d'Or?
For each of the last seven years the Ballon d'Or, awarded to the world's premiere footballer, has been a two-horse race between Barcelona's Messi and Real Madrid's Ronaldo.
Messi has won the award on four occasions; Ronaldo three times, including the past two years.
The great rivals are favourites to scoop the former world player of the year prize once more in 2015 - but would Neymar be a more deserving winner this time around? The WhoScored.com stats suggest he should run them close, at the very least.
Barcelona's victory over Villarreal on Sunday was the perfect example of why Neymar, in the continued absence of the injured Lionel Messi, should perhaps be seen as the Argentine's greatest rival for the award.
Neymar's second goal of the game against Villarreal - Barca's third - was a moment of magic, flicking the ball over the head of a defender before spinning and firing low into the net. It was an audacious attempt but one that, on current form, the forward was more than willing to take and not surprised to score.
The Brazilian has been in scintillating form for much of the year but has come to the fore for Barcelona with injured Messi unavailable.
With the voting for the Ballon d'Or commencing on October 26 and ending on November 20, Neymar could have done little more to put himself in the spotlight.
The 23-year old has earned WhoScored.com's man of the match award in each of his three appearances in that time, sandwiching a perfect 10 rating in the Champions League vs BATE Borisov with scores of 8.98 (v Getafe) and 9.76 (v Villarreal) in the league.
His overall rating of 8.63 is the highest in Europe's top five leagues this season, with his 11 La Liga goals leading the way in Spain.
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