Ballon d’Or 2026 Power Rankings

It doesn’t feel that long ago that fans were celebrating Ousmane Dembele’s 2025 Ballon d’Or win, but football moves faster than the speed of light and so attention has already turned to who could win next year’s Golden Ball – handed to the best player in the world for the 2025/26 season.

Will Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo make a shock return to football’s pedestal? In a World Cup year, almost anything is possible, but it’s safer to place your bets on star players representing one of the favourites for next year’s showpiece prize.

Meanwhile, clubs such as Real Madrid, Liverpool, and Paris Saint-Germain – each of whom have started the campaign in scintillating form – will have players in contention to hoist the Ballon d’Or, with league and Champions League winners traditionally holding a strong influence at the ceremony.

In the past, the prestigious individual accolade was based on the performance of footballers across a calendar year. However, this time around – for the fourth time in the award’s history – the votes are based on the results of the season. With that in mind, we’ve listed – and ranked – the 20 players who are best placed to win the 2026 Ballon d’Or based on their respective team’s chances of success as well as their current form.

Ranking factors

We’ve determined the order based on the following:

• Goals scored
• Assists
• Clean sheets (if defensive-minded)
• Trophies won/challenged for (expected to)
• Big moments in the 2025/26 season
• General form

10

Vitinha

Paris Saint-Germain & Portugal

“Vitinha, best midfielder in the world, he will be the next Ballon d’Or winner for me.” This was Thomas Frank’s assessment of the Portuguese midfielder after Tottenham were beaten 5-3 by Paris Saint-Germain on November 26. Vitinha scored a hat-trick during the Champions League tie to further enhance his status as one of the world’s best midfielders right now.

The 25-year-old finished third in the voting for the 2025 Ballon d’Or after winning the Champions League and UEFA Nations League earlier this year. But whether he can finish first on the podium in 2026 will all depend on how Portugal perform at next summer’s World Cup.

9

Cristiano Ronaldo

Al-Nassr & Portugal

Cristiano Ronaldo would absolutely love to become the oldest footballer ever to win the Ballon d’Or. He’ll be 41 years old by the time the 2026 Ballon d’Or award is handed out, and he could be the leading contender if Portugal win their first ever World Cup next summer.

Ronaldo remains one of the world’s best goalscorers, while his mentality is still arguably the best in the business. Still scoring incredible bicycle kick goals aged 40, it feels like Cristiano could play for another five years. Only he’ll decide when his glittering long career is done.

8

Luis Diaz

Bayern Munich & Colombia

Liverpool’s decision to let Luis Diaz leave Anfield for Bayern Munich is looking increasingly suspect by the week. Arne Slot may argue that the Colombian winger wanted to depart the club in the summer, and so a sale made sense for all parties, but the Reds have missed him during the opening weeks of the 2025-26 campaign.

Liverpool’s loss has been Bayern’s gain. In his first 21 games of the season, Diaz has already chipped in with 12 goals (including two against PSG at the Parc des Princes) and seven assists. Bayern will be serious challengers for both the Bundesliga and Champions League this season. The only thing that may cost him from a Ballon d’Or perspective is the fact Colombia are unlikely to win next summer’s World Cup.

7

Lionel Messi

Inter Miami & Argentina

Could Lionel Messi really win a record-breaking ninth Ballon d’Or award in 2026? If Argentina retain the World Cup next summer, then there’s every chance that’s exactly what will happen.

Messi, despite the fact that he’s now 38 years old, is still a genius capable of moments that no other footballer can produce. While he may have lost a little bit of sharpness in recent years, his performance levels with Inter Miami and Argentina remain outrageously good. Make no mistake about it: Messi will be one of the best players competing at the 2026 World Cup, and you wouldn’t bet against him further cementing his status as the greatest player of all time. He extended his record as football’s most decorated player by adding a 48th trophy to his collection in December.

6

Declan Rice

Arsenal & England

Is there a better all-action midfielder or set-piece maestro in world football right now? Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo runs Declan Rice close, but the Arsenal and England star has been outstanding during the opening months of the 2025-26 season. Nobody is questioning that £100 million transfer fee now, two years on from his controversial transfer from West Ham.

If Rice inspires Arsenal to their first Premier League title since 2004, and then helps England to go far at the 2026 World Cup finals, then it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he’ll be on the Ballon d’Or podium in 2026. There’s an awful long way to go, of course, but right now he’s playing like a man possessed.

5

Pedri

Barcelona & Spain

They might have been searching for years, but Barcelona may have finally found their long-term successor to Andres Iniesta. Bought from Las Palmas back in 2019, Pedri has emerged as the next best thing in Spain, and when you look at the kind of impact he is already making on his side, you can see why the hype is justified, with manager Hansi Flick recently claiming he can’t be compared to anyone else in his position right now.

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His silky feet and progressive passing make him feel like a La Masia product, and it’s not a stretch to say that not only is he the future of Barcelona’s midfield, but under Luis de la Fuente for Spain too. Widely considered one of the best midfielders in world football right now, his ridiculous quality in the middle of the park will only improve further as he’s still only 23.

4

Lamine Yamal

Barcelona & Spain

There has never been a teenage winner of the Ballon d’Or before. It’s remarkable that Lamine Yamal still has another couple of years to achieve this feat. If he continues his incredible upward trajectory, all bets are off as to whether he can really do it. His current form, combined with his superstardom, makes him something of a shoo-in in years to come – but could he do it in 2026?

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Having already put one of the biggest clubs in Europe on his back since he was 15 and helped lead his country to a European Championship at 16, Yamal is clearly a fearless individual who embodies the phrase “if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.” He’s broken several records already, but could this one potentially be his finest? His manager, Hansi Flick, believes there’s only one better player in world football right now, and many onlookers have been quick to question whether Lionel Messi was ever as good as Yamal was during his youth.

3

Harry Kane

Bayern Munich & England

Harry Kane is modern football’s answer to Wayne Rooney. Yes, he will absolutely score 30 goals a season, but he’ll also hit double figures in the assist rankings and spend about 30% of his time playing as a holding midfielder just to find that added space to work his magic. The England captain became his nation’s top goalscorer in 2023, as well as reaching second place in the all-time Premier League scoring charts after scoring an incredible 213 times for Tottenham.

His move to Bayern Munich has been a roaring success to date, as he managed to win the first piece of silverware in his career in the form of the Bundesliga. After the first 20 games of the 2025/26 season, he’d already found the back of the net 24 times while chalking up three further assists for teammates – back that up with a World Cup and/or Champions League triumph, and he could become England’s first Ballon d’Or recipient since Michael Owen’s win in 2001.

2

Erling Haaland

Manchester City & Norway

By the standards Erling Haaland set in his first season at Manchester City, his follow-up campaigns may, on the face of it, have seemed a little underwhelming – that’s even though he still claimed the Premier League Golden Boot in one of his next two terms. However, he has come flying out of the blocks this season, and few players have started as dominantly as him.

In a world where robot lifeforms are a genuine thing, Haaland proves he might just be walking machinery himself. The way he bulldozed his way through both Arsenal and Manchester United to notch three goals in those key fixtures was a statement of intent from the big Viking, and with Guardiola’s side finding their feet again after a period of transition, the rest of the continent should be worried.

1

Kylian Mbappe

Real Madrid & France

It feels like an inevitability that at some point in his career, Kylian Mbappe will stand on top of the podium lifting the famous golden ball. The French forward has been touted as a future successor to Messi and Ronaldo – but now in his mid-20s, he’s edging closer to cementing his status as the world’s best footballer with an absurd amount of goals to his name season-on-season.

Mbappe, who scored 256 times for Paris Saint-Germain across 305 appearances, took a few months to get going at Real Madrid after joining last summer. But after having won the European Golden Shoe last term with 31 goals in 34 La Liga games, and having now already managed to notch 25 goals in 21 appearances across all competitions this term, the Frenchman is blitzing his way to the top. With France and Los Blancos, he has every reason to believe he can win the lot in 2026.

Ballon d’Or Power Rankings: Full Top 20

All statistics in this article are via Transfermarkt – correct as of 11/12/2025.