For most of the past 15 years, there was really no point in campaigning for the men's Ballon d'Or -- it was going to the more obnoxiously successful of two men, Lionel Messi (eight-time winner) or Cristiano Ronaldo (five). Their personal -- and sometimes club -- rivalry defined the sport, to the point where even a rising star like Kylian Mbappé openly admitted he wasn't as good as them.
"It's not only me who knows that," he told writer Simon Kuper in "The Barcelona Complex." "Everyone knows it. If you tell yourself that you'll do better than them, it's beyond ego or determination -- it's lack of awareness. Those players are incomparable. They have broken all laws of statistics."
"I can't top them" probably isn't the healthiest thing in the world for a megastar to tell himself, but with Messi and Ronaldo finally having aged out of the competition -- Ronaldo hasn't finished in the top three of the voting in the 2020s, and Messi's final win came in 2023 -- now's the time to pounce.
Mbappé wants it. Lamine Yamal has said he wants it. Harry Kane thinks winning it would be "amazing." They're the three betting favorites for the award -- Kane's and Yamal's odds are both at +100 after a recent rise from Yamal, while Mbappé is at a longer +1000 -- but who actually deserves it?
After some late PR campaigns from players and clubs, voting for the award closed on Monday. It will go to the player who achieved the most between the beginning of the 2025-26 club season and the end of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Thirty players were officially nominated, but based on who has won the award in the past, we can narrow the field pretty quickly.
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Eliminate anyone who played for Real Madrid last season
Eliminated: Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior
I'm sorry, but we have to start here. The three players above are all dynamite, and two have come pretty close to winning the award already -- Mbappé was 192 points behind Messi in 2023, and Vinícius was only 41 points behind Rodri in 2024.