Of course, understaing you're only as good as your last game, this list could date dramatically over the next three days, so we scrambled to get it out the door in time for you to enjoy it before the live action gets underway on SBS ONE, HD and online this evening!
Marc Janko
Sydney FC coach Graham Arnold predicted fans of the Sky Blues would be muttering 'Alessandro who?' once Austria captain Marc Janko was through with the A-League. And five games into the New Year, Arnie's prophecy is starting to come to bare. Janko has rocketed to the equal (with Nathan Burns) top of the A-League scoring charts with six goals since January, and he is the form striker in the competition. It's just as well; the man he's keeping out of the first team – Shane Smeltz – has been on fire too. For what it's worth, ADP's top yield for Sydney was 14 goals, in his first season at the club. Janko has nine games to eclipse that total. The way he's going this year, he's on track to nudge the A-League season record of 19, jointly held by Smeltz (2009-2010) and Besart Berisha (2011-2012)
Harry Kane
Tottenham Hotspur's 'Hurri-Kane' has blasted nine goals from seven Premier League matches since the turn of the new year, actually bettering the high standards he set himself at the end of last year. Kane only starts for Spurs in their Premier League matches, where his feats have included doubles in the 5-3 win over Chelsea, the 3-0 win over West Bromwich Albion and the 2-1 win over Arsenal. The only league match in which he hasn't yet scored was the 2-1 win over Sunderland. This month he added 'loyalty' to his growing list of skills - not to mention zeroes to potential transfer fees - by signing a new, five-and-a-half-year deal with the club. Commentators are even calling other players 'the new Harry Kane'. Which brings me to…
Bas Dost
Anything Harry Kane can do, Wolfsburg beanpole Dost is showing he can do better. Dutchman Dost boasts nine goals from five games since the winter break as his club, nicknamed the 'wolf hunter', strengthens its grip on second in the Bundesliga, or top spot in the race for 'best of the rest' in Germany. Having said that, one of the reasons Bayern Munich isn't in this list is its 4-1 loss to Wolfsburg, in which Dost helped himself to a brace. He backed that up with four in his side's 5-4 grudge match goal-fest win over fellow 'best of the rest' aspirant Bayer Leverkusen, then two more against Hertha Berlin last weekend for good measure. It was in the Hertha match that Dost was likened to Kane and there's no doubting the two strikers are among the most prolific and exciting the game has seen in recent years.
Borussia Dortmund
Entering the winter break, Dortmund sat last in the Bundesliga and was facing the very real prospect of relegation. Speculation was rife that its star players would be plucked from the Westfalenstadion like survivors off a rapidly sinking ship, with the likes of Manchester United, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich said to be circling the carcass. Then, the year – and the worm - turned. Dortmund had a win, then a loss, then three more wins and all off a sudden the relegation zone was 'so 2014'. The story got even better when one of the players at the heart of rumour gibberish for the best part of two years, Marco Reus, . Dortmund may not be in contention for 'best of the rest' this season, but in Reus, it has a genuine star around which to rebuild its team to challenge Bayern Munich in future campaigns.
Socceroos
Just how bad was Australia's year in 2014, results-wise at least? From 11 matches played, Ange Postecoglou's rebuilding side garnered one win, two draws and eight losses. You’d be forgiven for feeling skeptical as the year wound down. Plenty of us were. Then 2015 happened. Two months in and the Socceroos are five wins from six matches, Asian Cup champions, and staring confidently down the barrel of an international against world champion Germany in March.
Three things no one ever imagined writing 12 months ago. On the way to bossing the best in the continent on home soil in January, Postecoglou's team blasted 14 goals and broke the shackles of golden-generation sized expectation. Thanks to the oft-unfairly maligned coach's vision to regenerate and attack, there are emerging stars clamouring for every position in the team, a world rankings surge and optimism from fans for the looming 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
Lionel Messi
By all reports it's been a bad season for the little master. He missed out on the Ballon d'Or, and has been an almost-constant subject of transfer speculation amid rumours of a falling out with his coach at Barcelona, Louis Enrique. For its part, Barcelona has appeared a shadow of its tiki-takking best and has struggled to dominate La Liga like it did circa Pep Guardiola. Then you take a closer look at Messi's form since the turn of the year and, that City miss notwithstanding, you realise he has actually nearing career-best form. His 11 league goals since 1 January have come in just eight matches, seven of which he started. Barca has notched 26 goals in the six of those matches it has won. That's more than four goals a win on average - with Messi at the wheel of the assist bus for many of the ones he's not finishing off himself. The first half of the season may have been a shocker by the Argentinian's lofty standards, but the first half of 2015 has been a revelation.
