The race for the Ballon d’Or is all but over with the world’s best player set to be crowned in the glamorous London ceremony this evening.
Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal and others have made their case, with a campaign from players, clubs and entourages filling pages and social media feeds for weeks.
Spain’s triumph over Argentina in the World Cup final catapulted 2024 winner Rodri and Yamal into contention, though Barcelona pushed for the latter as their main contender, potentially avoiding a share of votes between the two international and club colleagues.
Kane is the favourite, according to the bookmakers, and the Bayern Munich and England forward’s case is built behind a relentless run of production, both scoring and creating goals, to twist the narrative in his favour.
During the World Cup, eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi showed that he can still force himself into the conversation at the age of 39, firing eight goals to propel Argentina to the final and briefly take the crown as the competition’s all-time top goalscorer - until he was eclipsed by Kylian Mbappe, while Sir David Beckham has tipped the Argentine to win after inspiring Inter Miami to the Campeones Cup.
Here’s how the top 10 front-runners stack up in The Independent’s Ballon d’Or 2026 power rankings:
10. Pau Cubarsi 🆕
What’s this, a new entry to the power rankings?! Barcelona’s Cubarsi is favourite to bring home the Golden Boy award, but he’s so far been bumped from our list by Vinicius Jr, who squeezed into our top 10 mainly to spare myself some angry emails from those affiliated to Real Madrid and Brazil (I joke, kind of).
The 2024 runner-up had another strong season at the Bernabeu, netting 22 goals in 36 appearances, though was unable to inspire the club to a trophy. And after a below average start to the new term, with just one goal to his name in 10 as Real sit six points off the top, he’s been usurped by an El Clasico rival in Cubarsi.
Despite still only being 19, Cubarsi is an established figure at the heart of the Barca and Spain defence, and after picking up the honour of Young Player of the Tournament following his country’s World Cup win, he has carried that impenetrable form back to the Camp Nou. The Blaugrana have won nine from nine in the league and haven’t looked close to suffering defeat.
He’s up there among the best defenders on the planet as a teenager, playing a role that usually favours the more experienced; he will only get better. But does that mean Cubarsi will become the second player to ever win both the Golden Boy and Ballon d’Or on the same night after Messi? Doubtful.
9. Michael Olise ↔️
Crystal Palace could only keep him in Croydon for so long.
With Bayern Munich and France, Olise has established himself as one of the world’s best attackers, a talent so bright that the German giants did well to ward off interest from the likes of Real Madrid - who no doubt saw the World Cup partnership he formed with Mbappe and want to reunite the pair in the Spanish capital at some stage.
Will his electrifying performances be enough to win the Ballon d’Or? Probably not, this year. But he’s in the conversation, which is a statement in itself.
The jury may also fear what an Olise acceptance speech might look like. If his post-match interview from Bayern’s opening Champions League win over Bodo/Glimt is anything to go by, in which he scored a brace and assisted another, it’ll be like getting blood out of a stone. The perils of the nonchalant gimmick.
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8. Erling Haaland ⬇️
On solely his performances, Haaland does not exactly deserve to drop down in these rankings as we hurtle towards the Ballon d’Or ceremony. So let’s start with the good.
In the summer, Haaland was one of the stars of the World Cup and ensured Norway, playing in their first finals since 1998, lived up to their dark-horse status by powering them to the last-eight. On the way, his unrelenting goalscoring exploits humbled Brazil, sending the five-time winners packing. Away from the big-hitting nations, Haaland was far and away the tournament’s standout player, to little surprise.
He has then followed up on a pretty bog-standard season for City - just the 38 goals last year, the fourth season he’s hit 30+ at the Etihad, and a domestic double - by starting the season with 12 goals in 10 appearances. The man can’t and won’t stop scoring.
But, there’s a big but. Voting for the Ballon d’Or closed a few days after City’s guilty verdict was revealed. Currently, every bit of success related that club feels tainted. We feel that would have swayed some on the jury (not all) to vote against Haaland, whose goals are being financed by owners who inflated their own sponsorship income by £830m across eight seasons. He was already an outsider, but his odds have dropped further.
Apologies Erling. Not your fault.
7. Jude Bellingham ⬆️
How was this man’s place on the England plane ever in question?! Thomas Tuchel’s player of the tournament, Bellingham served his critics a serious helping of humble pie by guiding the Three Lions to the elusive World Cup bronze.
That beautiful redemption arc, on its own, got Bellingham onto this list. That’s because the season that preceded the World Cup wasn’t spectacular. Injuries limited him to just 13 goal contributions for Real Madrid in another trophyless campaign.
However, he’s started the new season pretty well, and that keeps him on this list - seven goal contributions in nine league games shows he might be returning to his Madrid form of old under Jose Mourinho. He also just bagged four goal contributions in England’s 7-0 thumping of Croatia, the first midfielder to do so in a single match for the Three Lions since David Platt scored four against San Marino in February 1993.
His chances of winning the Ballon d’Or are still low compared to the competition. But as was proved at the World Cup - maybe don’t count him out.
6. Ousmane Dembele ⬆️
Had France won the World Cup, as many expected them to do leading up to that drab semi-final exit, Dembele would have been heavily favoured to secure a second successive Ballon d’Or. The combination of World Cup and Champions League winners’ medals is a bit of a cheat code.
That would’ve been quite the gimme for a player who, let’s be honest, was France’s fourth best attacker at the World Cup. And while, like last year, he ended the season as Paris Saint-Germain’s top scorer with a Ligue 1 and Champions League to boot, he only managed about half of his goalscoring output.
His trophy haul still carries enough weight to be comfortably in the top 10 contenders, but the failure to lift that World Cup title gives him only an outside chance to go back-to-back - and we think that’s fair. His slow start to the new campaign, only scoring his first league goal last weekend, doesn’t help his cause. Sorry Ousmane, but this year shouldn’t be your year.
5. Lionel Messi ↔️
He couldn’t again, could he? Messi’s inclusion on this list encapsulates the significance of the World Cup in deciding the Ballon d’Or winner; he’s not going to take the accolade for his MLS exploits, is he. But fair play to the eight-time winner; at 39, he showed he very much still had it.
Messi’s eight goals propelled Argentina to the World Cup final, where they were rightly defeated by Spain - had he lifted back-to-back titles, he’d probably be towards the top two of this list. After all, he claimed the 2023 award after La Albiceleste’s triumph 10 months earlier, by which time he was on the books at Inter Miami.
Even with his runners-up medal,Indy Sport writers had him as the player of the tournament. That, combined with the jury’s historic love for the Argentinian, means you can’t exactly write him off. Messi’s retirement from international football, announced following the death of his father, Jorge, underlines that this is now his final chance to win another Ballon d’Or.
Beckham has tipped him to do just that after helping Inter Miami to the Campeones Cup. I’m sure the jury will put adequate weight on that...
4. Kylian Mbappe ⬇️
It feels pretty crazy to think that, at 27, Mbappe still doesn’t have a Ballon d’Or to his name, given he’s been at the top of the game for what feels like forever now.
Once again, he’s very much a frontrunner time around. His Golden Boot at the World Cup will do most of the heavy lifting, with his 10 goals in North America seeing him pass first Miroslav Klose and then Lionel Messi as the tournament’s all-time record goalscorer. Both he and Messi would have felt hard done by not to go home with the Golden Ball.
But lest we forget, despite the toxicity that surrounded his club season with Real Madrid, he didn’t exactly experience a drop-off in performance. He bagged 42 goals in 44 games, all while being hounded at the Bernabeu - and while it wasn’t enough to prevent another trophyless season for Los Blancos, you can’t knock his output.
Mbappe still believes he is the best in the world and under Mourinho, he’s crucially got the new season off to a flyer. He is already in scintillating goalscoring form, bagging 12 in 12, and suddenly looks one of the biggest challengers for the fabled individual prize.
3. Rodri ⬆️
You might not like it, but the weight of the World Cup in the eyes of the Ballon d’Or jury is undeniable. Just ask Luka Modric.
Rodri had a sensational World Cup at the heart of Spain’s midfield, shielding their rock-solid defence while acting as the metronome that took play forward. His influence took him to the Golden Ball ahead of top goalscorers Messi and Mbappe - and in the immediate aftermath, we felt that could be enough to swing the Ballon d’Or in his favour.
That always felt like a bit of an injustice, considering he didn’t have the most spectacular domestic season. Returning from injury with Manchester City, it took him a while to properly find his feet in a campaign that saw Pep Guardiola’s side win the FA Cup and League Cup, but miss out on the Premier League title.
Yes, the World Cup is the World Cup - and whether you agree with the importance of team achievements in an individual award, the reality is that it does matter a hell of a lot. What could tip the scales further in his favour, though, is his start to life at Barcelona. He’s slotted into a team that have began the new season in staggering form, with a 100 percent record in the league and +30 goal difference after just nine games.
That said, he doesn’t seem full of self-belief, instead feeling that Barcelona are pushing team-mate Yamal to win the award. "The club has opted for Lamine because they believe he is the player who deserves it most, and that's perfectly legitimate," he said.
2. Lamine Yamal ⬇️
Yamal will surely win his fair share of Ballon d’Ors across his career, but the 19-year-old may very well end up taking home his first this year, going one better than his runners-up finish in 2025.
He became the first player under 20 to appear at both a European Championship final and a World Cup final - he won both. While his output was pretty modest for his standards, he was influential throughout the tournament for Spain - and that’s after coming into it carrying a hamstring injury.
But unlike team-mate Rodri, who sits below him in these rankings, his club form across the past year enhances his argument to win the award rather than detracts from it. He bagged 24 goals and 18 assists across all competitions for Barcelona in another LaLiga-winning season - hardly mediocre numbers - and has started the new term with 20 goal contributions in 12 games, contributing to Barca’s eye-watering goal difference early doors.
It’s back on Spain duty, though, where Yamal made a statement in his Ballon d’Or joust with Kane. A Nations League showdown between the pair at Wembley was won by Yamal, who scored inside two minutes when taking advantage of a Marc Guehi error. Spain went on to win 3-2, with Kane missing a crucial penalty.
This happened a couple of days before voting for the Ballon d’Or closed. Might it have convinced some of the jury to go another way? It briefly made Yamal the odds-on favourite for the award - but a certain Englishman has since returned to the top of the pile...
1. Harry Kane ⬆️
England captain Kane is the frontrunner to win the Ballon d’Or despite failing to set the World Cup alight quite like he managed the Bundesliga in 2025/26. That’s a testament to just how prolific he was last term.
Kane was the top goalscorer in Europe, hitting 61 goals in 51 games across all competitions as he spearheaded Bayern towards the league and cup double; he’s added silverware to his ever-present individual numbers. He was then hardly irrelevant at the World Cup, scoring six goals - including a crucial late brace against DR Congo to spare his country serious embarrassment - as England secured their best World Cup finish since 1966.
After a similarly strong start to the new season, recording 17 goal contributions in 11 appearances, the jury has good reason to put their classic emphasis on the World Cup and wider team achievement to one side. There is also the significance of the location of the Ballon d’Or ceremony to consider; it will be held in London, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the very first Ballon d’Or won by England’s Sir Stanley Matthews. Could Kane become just the fifth Englishman to win the prize?
His England team-mate Declan Rice certainly thinks so. “For me, he's the clear winner,” Rice said after Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Bayern. “I think his numbers speak for himself. The year he's had has been remarkable.”
