The great intrigue surrounding the most prestigious individual award in football has now been resolved. Harry Kane has won the “Ballon d'Or“ for 2026, leaving Kylian Mbappe and Lamine Yamal behind him. The speculation that lasted for months ended on the stage of the “London Palladium“ theater, where the names of all 30 best football players for the past season were announced.
Immediately after the English top scorer came Kylian Mbappe, who managed to overtake Lamine Yamal in the vote. The second place of the French Real Madrid striker is the best achievement in his career for this award. For the young Spanish talent of the Catalans, this represents a one-place drop from his second place last year. The top five is completed by two former winners of the award - Rodri and Leo Messi.
The editor-in-chief of “France Football“ and head of the “Ballon d'Or“ organization, Vincent Garcia, commented on the extremely small gap at the top.
“For the first two - Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe, the gap this year was minimal. The points gap between Kane and Mbappe is even smaller than that between Rodri and Vinicius in 2024. Back then, the difference was 41 points, which wasn't much at the time," Garcia revealed.
Garcia also explained the factors that led to Lamine Yamal's third place, pointing out the distribution of votes among the Spanish players:
“If we analyze the votes in the Spanish national team that won the world title, there is a division between Rodri and Lamine Yamal. Rodri took some of Lamine's votes in that particular competition. There was some dispersion of votes among the Spaniards. Spain was a strong team, and therefore it was difficult to distinguish individual performances. Knowing that Lamine Yamal became world champion, but scored only one goal and started the tournament with an injury, it was difficult for the jury members to distinguish one Spanish player over another,“ the editor added.