Top 10 Ballon d’Or Rankings heading into 2026: Lamine Yamal, Bruno Fernandes get their due

The year 2026 will soon be upon us, and with the Premier League being the only top league in action this weekend while AFCON is fully under way, now is a great time as ever to take stock of the Ballon d’Or power rankings for the 2025/26 season before the calendar officially flips.

Lamine Yamal, Harry Kane, Erling Haaland, and Kylian Mbappe are widely seen as the front runners, but how exactly do they stack up with reigning winner Ousmane Dembele totally out of the picture due to injury? And do any other Bayern, City, Madrid, or Barca stars make the cut? Let’s take a look.

10. Manchester United AM Bruno Fernandes

Bruno Fernandes probably isn’t the first name on anyone’s Ballon d’Or short list, but as a deep lying midfielder in an unideal role, he is still putting up pretty insane numbers under Ruben Amorim with five goals and seven assists in an ever difficult Premier League.

The Portuguese international is a chance creation machine with about three key passes per game, and, as ever, without Fernandes leading the charge, Man United would not be anywhere near seventh and suddenly in the European race again.

9. Bayer Leverkusen LB Alex Grimaldo

What Alex Grimaldo does as a left back is simply ridiculous, and although Bayer Leverkusen are no longer anywhere near the Bundesliga title picture, they are still doing pretty well in 2025/26.

Grimaldo is such a key cog in the side with four goals, four assists, 2.5 key passes per game, and 2.8 dribbles completed and fouls drawn per match. Finding that kind of production out of left back is just about impossible.

8. Barcelona LW Raphinha

Overshadowed by Lamine Yamal, Raphinha isn’t quite having his most insane season in the Barcelona attack, but the 2024/25 Ballon d’Or candidate is still a candidate this season despite some nagging injuries.

Quietly, Raphinha has found the back of the net seven times with three assists and is slowly finding his best form. A perfect fit for the Hansi Flick system, Raphinha has become a ruthless finisher and explosive off ball threat. Who saw this coming when he was at Leeds?

7. Bayern Munich LW Luis Diaz

Whereas Liverpool are mired in controversy despite an active summer transfer window, the one star they sacrificed is really enjoying his football as a free flowing outlet on the left side of this insanely good Bayern Munich attack.

Luis Diaz was meant for the Bundesliga with his elite skills and sheer explosiveness in open space. He has eight goals and six assists this season, and while he was criticized at Liverpool for being inconsistent in front of goal, they really underappreciated how much he creates on sheer volume.

6. Bayern Munich RW Michael Olise

Edged out a bit by his winger teammate, Michael Olise is such a special player. He is one of the most intelligent and technically gifted footballers in the world, and yet he has all the tools athletically to explode past defenders and create his own shot.

The most assists in the year 2025, Olise deserves so much more Ballon d’Or love than he is getting, and when you talk about how a player impacts a team, you could argue that among the Frenchmen, Olise is doing more to help Bayern than Kylian Mbappe is helping a struggling Real Madrid.

5. Como AM Nico Paz

Speaking of Real Madrid, Nico Paz squeaks into the top five of the Ballon d’Or race ahead of the dynamic Bayern winger duo, and it will not be long before he leaves beautiful Como and Cesc Fabregas behind to reunite with Real Madrid and maybe, if he is still there, Xabi Alonso.

Paz has carried Como to relevancy and is on weekly highlight reels, showcasing a level of technical excellence and footballing intelligence that is beyond what most 21 year olds are capable of.

4. Real Madrid CF Kylian Mbappe

With 2.8 dribbles completed and 2.7 key passes per game, Kylian Mbappe is providing a lot more than goals to the Real Madrid attack, and he is barely behind Erling Haaland and Harry Kane in the European Golden Boot race with 18 goals.

Mbappe is playing as well as any footballer on the planet individually, but his stats are also buoyed by piling up goals against teams like Kairat. He is still faltering in the biggest club games, and he is also severely hurt by the fact that Real Madrid continue to underperform with the offense catered to him.

3. Manchester City ST Erling Haaland

There is no better pure goal scorer than Erling Haaland right now, and while that is pretty much all he is doing for Manchester City, he is doing it so well that City are really still in the title race after a poor start to the season because of his unstoppable goal scoring prowess.

So good at positioning himself off the ball, Haaland is only going to explode more as a scorer in the second half of the Premier League campaign with Rayan Cherki fully healthy and perhaps Antoine Semenyo coming in.

2. Barcelona RW Lamine Yamal

People love to hate Lamine Yamal because he is so talented and does not play for their team that he then becomes an easy target to try to undermine, but if you look at what actual legends of the game like Marco van Basten think, it’s obvious that Yamal is on his own plane of greatness.

His seven goals and seven assists do not tell the whole story. Barcelona revolve around Yamal and are leading the way in La Liga because of his all around excellence with an insane 5.6 dribbles completed and 2.3 key passes per game from the wing. He is unplayable.

1. Bayern Munich ST Harry Kane

But Harry Kane is the real model of consistency. You will even see the world class striker with 19 goals this season defending deep in his own half and creating from deep better than every other 6 or 8 on this planet.

Kane has just three assists on the season, but he also has 1.3 key passes and 2.6 dribbles completed and fouls drawn per game. Those stats are more reflective of his unique, all encompassing greatness.