The Ballon d’Or 2025: A New Era of Competition
As the most prestigious individual award in global football, the Ballon d’Or dominates the annual conversation throughout each season. Handed out by France Football in the fall for the previous season from August to July, the Ballon d’Or is given to the best football player from around the globe across the campaign. A gala is held each year – with UEFA now involved in the organising – to crown the best male and female players and give out several other accolades.
Rodri’s win in 2024 was controversial, but his ACL tear early this season has left the 2025 contest wide open. Players who finished just behind the Manchester City star, such as Real Madrid trio Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham, and Vinicius Jr., were thought to be top contenders for the conversation once again, but other challengers have emerged.
While performance in the top European leagues will get players towards the top of the list, the UEFA Champions League is where most eventual winners ultimately stake their claims. With the 2024/25 season now concluded, and the 30-player shortlist for the award now official, The Sporting News details all the brilliant candidates, explaining why each one performed at such a high level and who should take home the coveted trophy.
Top Contenders for the 2025 Ballon d’Or
10) Jude Bellingham (MF, Real Madrid)
While the Real Madrid superstar could not reproduce the flashy goals and assists tallies he collected in his first season in Spain, he was just as important in the club’s ultimately vain push for trophies on all fronts. With the arrival of Kylian Mbappe, Bellingham has been shifted away from his glutton of attacking responsibilities into a more traditional 8/10 hybrid midfield role, and as expected, he’s excelled.
Bellingham ranked last season in the top five percentile of European midfielders in multiple passing categories, successful take-ons, progressive passes received, carries, and tackles, indicating his wide range of capabilities makes him an invaluable player. His downturn in attacking production probably means he won’t win the Ballon d’Or, because at the end of the day goals reign king, but even so, 14 and 14 is a strong haul given all the other things Bellingham excels at. There’s no debate – Jude Bellingham is one of the best midfielders in the world.
Despite that, a trophy-less season with Real Madrid is undeniably a disappointment for his sophomore campaign with the club, and Bellingham receiving multiple red cards for loose emotional outbursts is also a difficult look. He was outshone by teammates at the Club World Cup and will now miss a number of weeks after undergoing shoulder surgery.
9) Achraf Hakimi (RB, PSG)
The Sporting News had Julian Alvarez in this position before the 30-player shortlist was announced, but the Atletico Madrid man was one of the top snubs by France Football, forcing a pivot. In steps one of PSG’s incredible nine nominees, Achraf Hakimi. The Morocco international was utterly sensational all season, and like most PSG players, got even better as it went along. 11 goals and 16 assists from the full-back position across all competitions is ludicrous, and he scored goals in three of the club’s final four Champions League games of the season, proving pivotal to their European title.
And the best part about Hakimi’s contributions is that he does not sacrifice anything defensively for all this world-class attacking production. The 26-year-old has strong ball-winning numbers, and is also a monster in the possessional build-up. There is nothing Hakimi can’t do, and the 2024/25 campaign was the best of his world-class career thus far.
8) Robert Lewandowski (CF, Barcelona)
At the end of the 2023/24 campaign, it appeared that, at 35 years old, Robert Lewandowski was cooked. Nineteen goals and eight assists in La Liga was nothing to scoff at, but it’s not what Lewandowski was used to. The Poland international saw his shots per 90 absolutely plummet from 4.25 in 2022/23 to 2.98 that season. He was simply not able to get himself in dangerous positions as often, and struggled to finish big chances with regularity when he did.
Fast forward to the end of 2024/25, and reports of Lewandowski’s demise were greatly exaggerated. His shot totals returned to near his old volume, and he was finishing at a very strong rate even while hardly ever touching the ball outside the penalty area. While some of this can be chalked up to Hansi Flick’s attacking style of play, Lewandowski’s contributions in such a system cannot be denied. Even with a cold spell through late 2024, Lewandowski soared past his goals tally from the season before, remaining a force not only in La Liga but in Europe as well. He enjoyed quite the redemption campaign and has to be considered amongst the Ballon d’Or contenders, even if it’s tough for a true No. 9 to win the award over those with more creative abilities to complement their finishing.
7) Harry Kane (CF, Bayern Munich)
Now 32 years old and no longer in search of his first career major trophy, Harry Kane was sensational in his second season at Bayern Munich. Kane is the ideal No. 9 for any coach, able to do a myriad of things at the head of the attack. He can obviously score goals, with 26 in 31 league games plus another 11 in Europe, but his hold-up play, counter-attack prowess, and penalty venom make Kane a versatile and dangerous striker.
While his pressing abilities are lacking at this age, the presence of energetic wingers and midfielders at Bayern mask that hole in his skill set. Kane and Lewandowski both eclipsed 30 goals across domestic league and Champions League play, but the England international did so with just 24.37 xG compared to the 30.26 xG of Lewy, indicating he’s profited the same from lower-value chances. Add in Kane’s nine assists to just two for Lewy, and you get a clear pecking order. However, Bayern were left wanting thanks to their early exit from the Champions League at the hands of Inter Milan, leaving Kane out of Europe while Lewandowski progressed to the semifinals. Kane made up for it slightly by scoring a bit in the Club World Cup, but it feels that neither player has done enough to challenge those above them on this list.
6) Vitinha (CM, Paris Saint-Germain)
It’s always difficult for a midfielder to win or even contend for a Ballon d’Or, as frequent goal scorers always have a leg up, but Vitinha’s performances are a huge reason why PSG flew to new heights once the 2025 calendar year began. While all three PSG midfielders deserve innumerable plaudits, it is Vitinha who runs the show. With Joao Neves shielding the back line and Fabian Ruiz linking play to the forwards, Vitinha operates in the proverbial engine room. He is amongst the top passers in Europe by both sheer volume and completion percentage, but it’s his technical range that allows the 25-year-old to truly shine.
What makes PSG so utterly dangerous is that Vitinha can orchestrate a deadly move in just about any manner of play. He can run a vicious counter-attack, pass a bunkered team to death, or anything in between. With Vitinha at the helm, they can either move quickly to generate a large number of chances, or sit on possession and kill time while lulling the opponent to sleep. He’s one of the most adaptable midfielders in the world all while being obscenely press-resistant on the ball, and Luis Enrique has maximized these skills to enormous effect. Unfortunately, in such a wide-open Ballon d’Or field, there are too many pure goal-scoring superstars ahead of him to contend for the trophy. He was building a strong resume at the Club World Cup, where he shone, but a disastrous performance in the competition final seems to have ruined all that hard work. Vitinha is no doubt at least on the fringes of this season’s conversation, and continued excellence could see him rise up the list in future campaigns.
5) Kylian Mbappe (FW, Real Madrid)
Kylian Mbappe’s first season at Real Madrid started infamously slowly, but even then the noise was blown out of proportion. After the early sputters, Mbappe exploded to life, overtaking the other Blancos stars as the undisputed leader of a Galactico-laden squad. Given how much attention Mbappe’s lack of production through the first two to three months of 2024/25 garnered, it’s a minor miracle that he stood at the end of the season having won the Pichichi trophy for the domestic La Liga season. While his creativity has dipped considerably, that is to be expected given he has taken over the central striker role at his new club.
It is easy to understand why Mbappe struggled early on – he naturally wanted to occupy places his teammates (namely, Vinicius Jr. and Rodrygo) were already in, and thus they clashed. It seems Mbappe and his fellow Madrid forwards began to combine better as the second concluded, although there’s still plenty more to work on, evident in their disappointing Champions League quarterfinal exit and the humbling defeat to PSG in the Club World Cup. With Madrid ending the season trophyless, and the pervasive feeling that Mbappe’s arrival is at least partly the cause of Vinicius Jr. and Bellingham’s dip in production, his narrative leaves his chase for the Ballon d’Or all but cooked, despite his exceptional individual performance overall. Mbappe must be seen as a reason for more overall team success to be a candidate for this award.
4) Lamine Yamal (FW, Barcelona)
After winning the 2023/24 Kopa Trophy as the world’s best young player, Lamine Yamal took a remarkable leap in 2024/25. While the middle of the campaign saw a bit of a statistical slump, he continues to dazzle viewers and made up for the midseason lull with an explosive bookend. Still remarkably just 17 years old, the youngster opened the season by scoring five goals and assisting seven more in his first 12 La Liga matches, plus two goal contributions in Barcelona’s first three Champions League games, and cracked on from there.
A superb second half of the season then saw the youngster shoot up the rankings, contending for more than just the Kopa Trophy. His confidence is outlandish, and even when he doesn’t log goal contributions, he still seems to dazzle in some exceptional way. His second-half surge ultimately fell just short with Barcelona eliminated in the Champions League semifinals, but the youngster has done more than enough to remain a figure in the minds of viewers as not just a future star but a present-day contender for this prestigious award.
3) Mohamed Salah (RW, Liverpool)
For much of the season it seemed that nobody was close to Mohamed Salah in the Ballon d’Or race… until Liverpool shockingly crashed out of the Champions League in the Round of 16. Not only that, but Salah was invisible across the two legs against PSG, pocketed by Nuno Mendes through the 180 minutes at both the Parc des Princes and Anfield. Salah undoubtedly had an unbelievable, world-class season. The Egypt international finished with an outlandish 57 goal contributions, split across 34 goals and 23 assists. His best goal-scoring work was done in the Premier League, where he scored 27 goals in 29 matches, including braces against Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United plus big goals against Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, and Manchester United twice.
Yet there are two problems with Salah’s candidacy. First, he was too quiet in the Champions League, on a stage that ultimately matters more than any other. European play draws the most eyeballs and tends to sway voters heavily, as it should as the top competition on the continent. Second, he was without any big international or club opportunities during the summer to add to his resume. African international football pauses through the late summer months and the next Africa Cup of Nations is not until December, and Liverpool did not participate in the 2025 Club World Cup. This means other players could use international competition to make a late play for the award, and Salah has to lean on his club accomplishments and hope nobody else played hero enough on an international level.
As such, the Champions League flop hurts him even more than it normally would have. Without a deep European run, Salah needed to maintain his record-setting level of production domestically to have a chance. Instead, he scored one goal in the final eight games of the season from March on. It was a brave run this year, but three-quarters of a brilliant domestic campaign isn’t enough. His Ballon d’Or push is over – it’s a two-horse race.
2) Ousmane Dembele (FW, Paris Saint-Germain)
Through the first half of the season, Ousmane Dembele was quietly putting together one of the most under-the-radar performances across all of Europe. That was, until PSG eliminated Liverpool and previous favourite Salah in the Round of 16, turning the Ballon d’Or race upside down as the world began to notice the 27-year-old’s explosion. Say what you will about the competition level of Ligue 1, where Dembele scored 21 goals and assisted eight others (including a run of 16 goals in 11 games between mid-December and mid-March), but the France forward played at a superstar level in both the Champions League and Club World Cup as well.
Dembele and the rest of PSG exploded to life as the calendar turned to 2025, scoring six goals across the final two league-phase games plus the first knockout-playoff match. He finished the 90 minutes at home against Liverpool without profit, but he was the best player on the pitch – a continued theme the rest of the year. The way Dembele produced world-class numbers even as other PSG star forwards also impressed was truly remarkable. If PSG had gone out of Europe early in the knockout phase it would have destroyed his chances of winning this award, as a strong campaign in Ligue 1 is never enough in its current state. Yet after lifting the Champions League trophy and reaching the Club World Cup final, a clear statement has been made.
With Raphinha and Barcelona bowing out of the Champions League semifinals and not in the Club World Cup field, the Ballon d’Or was Dembele’s to win… and yet, he has probably failed to do so. The award is as much about narrative as it is statistical performance, and failing to score in either final did him in: he was outshone by young Desire Doue’s brace in the Champions League title match, and PSG’s Club World Cup final disaster was the nail in the coffin. A sensational season, but just not quite enough.
1) Raphinha (FW, Barcelona)
It’s quite something that for much of the year, Ballon d’Or front-runners Dembele and Raphinha were shockingly unheralded. Even on his own team, Raphinha lags behind Lamine Yamal, Lewandowski, and other stars who hog the spotlight. Despite that, nobody in the world has done what Raphinha did this past season. The Brazilian has been a consistent, productive player since joining Barcelona, but he found a new gear in his first year under Flick. While his 18 goals and 11 assists in La Liga play were vital to lead Barcelona in a domestic title triumph, it’s the 13 goals and nine assists in the Champions League that headline his Ballon d’Or resume.
A hat-trick against Bayern Munich was the flashiest of the lot, but he also had three goals in two games against Benfica, including the critical winner in the first leg of their Round of 16 matchup, plus another goal against Borussia Dortmund and two assists against Atalanta in the league phase. Raphinha lagged for some time behind Salah in the creative department but ultimately made good on his chances created and expected assists (xA) advantage, finishing with a higher assist total on the year. He flourished most notably as a low-touch finisher at the back post while Lamine Yamal did much of the progressive work, but he still was a critical component of Barcelona’s build-up as well as their end product.
The turning point of the Ballon d’Or race was the moment Salah’s Liverpool crashed out of the Champions League, happening on the same day Barcelona skewered Benfica. From that point on, it felt that Raphinha was one half of a two-horse race alongside Dembele. Raphinha had scored in five consecutive UCL games coming into the first leg of Barcelona’s semifinal with Inter Milan, and while a technicality ended that streak, he made sure to provide a third goal in the second leg at the San Siro. That May 6 strike brought Raphinha level with Cristiano Ronaldo for the most goal involvements in a single Champions League competition, his 21st contribution.
European heartbreak seemed to harm his chances considerably, opening the door for the likes of Dembele who could have edged in front, but as mentioned before, the Frenchman never walked through the door. Raphinha should be the 2024/25 Ballon d’Or winner after a fascinating and brilliant race. The post-Messi and Ronaldo era has been a wonderful change from the often pre-determined nature of the award.
Honorable Mentions
Selecting just 10 players to consider for the Ballon d’Or leaves out a number of deserving individuals who may not have a realistic shot at claiming the award but still deserve mention for their outstanding campaigns. As one of last year’s top contenders for this prize – so much so that Real Madrid boycotted the ceremony to protest his second-place finish – it’s shocking to see Vinicius Jr. not even amongst the top 10. While the Brazilian remains one of the top players in the world, he fell well short of the previous season’s heroics, capped by his poor showing against Arsenal in their Champions League quarterfinal exit and disappearing act in the Club World Cup. Real Madrid ended the season without a trophy, and Vini has a lot of work to do if he wishes to return to form under Xabi Alonso.
Two attackers who fell just short of the list are Michael Olise and Florian Wirtz, who were sensational in their own right. Wirtz was electric through March before an injury and Bayer Leverkusen’s subsequent elimination from trophy chases saw him fade late on, and he no doubt earned his big-money move to Liverpool. Olise, meanwhile, flew entirely under the radar, but as one of the most consistent performers across the entire campaign for Bayern both domestically and abroad.
Serhou Guirassy of Borussia Dortmund poured on goals all season long, but BVB’s putrid league finish means he remains on the periphery of this conversation even as he found himself amongst the top scorers in both the Champions League and Club World Cup. Ademola Lookman and Jamal Musiala were also exceptional, but Atalanta’s early exit from the Champions League is likely to end Lookman’s run at the award, and Musiala suffered a torn hamstring in early April that left him unable to finish the season’s story. In the end, both failed to make the eventual 30-player shortlist. It got even worse for the German as he will miss a number of months after suffering a broken leg at the Club World Cup, so the 21-year-old may not be seen for some time.
Understandably, it is very difficult for non-forwards to enter the upper echelon of this list, with just two – Vitinha, a midfielder, and Hakimi, an attack-minded full-back – ranked in The Sporting News top 10. A nod must be given to Virgil van Dijk of Liverpool who enjoyed an absolutely outstanding campaign at the back for the Reds, even as Liverpool exited the Champions League thanks to a lack of attacking flair, and he was the only center-back on the eventual Ballon d’Or shortlist. Another defensive player who was exceptional is Gabriel of Arsenal, having proven himself not only a defensive wizard but also a strong threat in the air on set-pieces in the attacking third. His Arsenal teammate William Saliba and Champions League finalist Alessandro Bastoni were also both deserving of mention, but all three were eventually snubbed from the defensively-thin Ballon d’Or shortlist.
In midfield, Rodri’s ACL injury opened the door for others to be involved in the conversation. Creative midfielders like Bruno Fernandes and Dominik Szoboszlai had exceptional seasons, while the defensive-midfield player pool has almost no one deserving of mention this year. Federico Valverde earned plaudits for his incredible season at multiple positions, but his performances largely went unheralded from a global perspective. None made the shortlist in the end.