With the 2026 Ballon d’Or award set to be presented to soccer’s top performer — as determined by France Football magazine — next Monday in London, there’s no better time to take a crack at ranking the Top 20 players in the game.
Many of those listed below have been nominated for the most coveted individual prize on Planet Fútbol, though while the Ballon d’Or voters can only consider achievements from early August 2025 to July 19 of this year, the day Spain beat Argentina in the final of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, this list reflects who ranks where right now.
(Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
The Manchester City winger’s ball skills are as dazzling as they come, and the end-product (4 goals, 2 assists in six Premier League contests) has been there this season, too.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 FA Cup winner (Manchester City)
- 2025-26 League Cup winner (Manchester City)
- Member of France’s 2026 World Cup Squad
(Picture by Ibrahim Ezzat/NurPhoto through Getty Photographs)
The 29-year-old Brazilian is main Europe’s prime 5 leagues with 12 targets to this point. Raphinha completed fifth within the Ballon d’Or voting final yr.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 La Liga champion (Barcelona)
- 21 goals across all competitions for Barcelona in 2025-26
- Member of Brazil’s 2026 World Cup squad
(Picture by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Photographs)
Nicely on his method to changing into among the best Eucadorian gamers ever, Pacho is already one among soccer’s prime central defenders; his partnership with PSG captain Marquinhos continues to be the perfect in Europe by a ways.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Champions League winner (PSG)
- 2025-26 Ligue 1 champion (PSG)
- Started all four of Ecuador’s matches at the 2026 World Cup
(Picture by Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Photographs)
Signed by PSG from Italian facet Napoli in early 2025, the “Georgian Maradona” grew to become an instantaneous starter for Luis Enrique because the Parisians gained consecutive home and European honors. Nevertheless, his season got here to an finish after struggling an ACL damage within the Oct. 20 win over Barcelona in Champions League motion.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Champions League Player of the Season
- 2025-26 Champions League winner (PSG), with 10 goals and six assists in the competition
- 2025-26 Ligue 1 champion (PSG)
(Picture by Ryan Pierse/Getty Photographs)
The 24-year-old from Portugal is the highest left again on the earth, although he’s out for the following few weeks due to a thigh damage suffered in PSG’s 2-1 win over Strasbourg final weekend.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Champions League winner (PSG)
- 2025-26 Champions League Team of the Season
- Scored for Portugal at the 2026 World Cup
(Picture by Maynard Manyowa/Information Photographs/NurPhoto through Getty Photographs)
Elite goalkeepers are in brief provide as of late, which is without doubt one of the causes Raya is right here regardless of not even beginning for his nationwide staff; the Arsenal No. 1 watched from the bench as Unai Simon backdropped Spain to the World Cup final summer time. Nonetheless, the 31-year-old vet was the perfect keeper in membership soccer final season and has allowed 5 targets in seven league video games this one, tied for tops within the Premier League.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Premier League champion (Arsenal)
- 2025-26 Premier League Golden Glove (19 clean sheets)
- 2026 World Cup champion with Spain
(Picture by Jean Catuffe/Getty Photographs)
The veteran proper again stays the perfect round at his place and, at solely 27, among the best, interval. Earlier than serving to PSG repeat as European champs final spring, Hakimi captained Morocco on the Africa Cup of Nations, which the Atlas Lions gained after Senegal was later dominated to have forfeited.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025 Africa Cup of Nations champion (Morocco)
- 2025-26 Champions League winner (PSG)
- Captained Morocco to the 2026 World Cup quarterfinals
(Picture by Tnani Badreddine/DeFodi Photographs/DeFodi through Getty Photographs)
The highest holding midfielder within the sport, the 26-year-old Portuguese destroyer has been a mainstay for supervisor Luis Enrique throughout PSG’s final two trophy-laden seasons. He additionally helped his nation win the UEFA Nations League in 2025, defeating Spain, and completed third within the Ballon d’Or voting.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Champions League winner (PSG), named Player of the Match in the final
- 2025-26 Ligue 1 champion (PSG)
- Member of Portugal’s 2026 World Cup squad
(Picture By Javier Borrego/Europa Press through Getty Photographs)
Though he wasn’t a full-time starter for Spain in the course of the World Cup, he created extra possibilities than another La Roja participant on the match. His introduction off the bench in further time was the spark that led to Ferran Torres’s trophy-clinching objective.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup champion (Spain)
- 2025-26 LaLiga champion (Barcelona)
(Picture by Marc Atkins/Getty Photographs)
The massive Brazilian central defender was the rock that Arsenal’s success was constructed on in 2025-26, when the Gunners gained the Premier League for the primary time in twenty years and got here agonizingly near their maiden triumph in Europe’s prime membership competitors.
At 28, Gabriel is maybe the highest defender within the Premier League with Arsenal companion William Saliba injured long run.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Premier League champion (Arsenal)
- 2025-26 Champions League Team of the Season
- Started for Brazil at the 2026 World Cup
(Picture by Angel Martinez/Getty Photographs)
The Actual Madrid star was England’s emotional chief and, with all respect to Kane, its finest participant in main his nation to a bronze medal on the 2026 World Cup, the Three Lions highest end since 1966. He has three targets and three assists in 9 La Liga matches.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup bronze medal winner (England)
- England-record seven goals at the 2026 World Cup
(Picture by Sathire Kelpa/Eurasia Sport Photographs/Getty Photographs)
When Dembélé took house the Ballon d’Or final yr, there was an apparent query: What would he do for an encore?
The 29-year-old responded by main PSG to its second European crown in two seasons, scoring the equalizer for his facet in opposition to Arsenal en path to eventual victory within the penalty shootout. In two Champions League video games this season, he already has three targets.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Champions League winner (PSG)
- 2025-26 Ligue 1 champion (PSG)
- Started for France at the 2026 World Cup
(Picture by Peter Kneffel/image alliance through Getty Photographs)
Lengthy the face of England’s biggest technology of gamers for the reason that Three Lions’ lone World Cup win greater than 60 years in the past now, the stylish middle ahead might be on the downslope of his profession at age 33.
But he stays the sport’s finest pure scorer this facet of Erling Haaland, having bagged six to the Norwegian’s seven on the 2026 tourney.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Bundesliga champion (Bayern Munich)
- 2025-26 Bundesliga top scorer (36 goals)
- 2026 World Cup bronze medal winner (England)
(Picture by Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Photographs)
Like Messi, Cubarsí additionally had an argument for the World Cup’s Golden Ball.
At simply 19 years of age, the Barcelona middle again anchored Spain’s backline as La Roja shut down opponents on the best way to elevating the World Cup trophy, conceding an astonishing one objective in opposition to in eight matches. Afterward, the Barça academy product was named the competitors’s prime teen.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup champion (Spain)
- 2026 World Cup Best Young Player
- 2025-26 LaLiga champion (Barcelona)
(Picture by Andrew J. Clark/ISI Pictures/ISI Pictures through Getty Photographs)
How can Messi not be right here after the GOAT, who turned 39 in the course of the World Cup, scored eight targets to assist Argentina attain the ultimate for the second time in 4 years? Solely Kylian Mbappé, his ninth and tenth strikes got here in opposition to England’s backups within the glorified pleasant often called the match for third place, was extra prolific.
Messi was the perfect participant on the sphere within the Albiceleste’s 2-1 win over England within the semis and his nation’s prime performer within the extra-time defeat to Spain within the finale. The face of Inter Miami can be the runaway scoring chief in MLS, with 5 extra targets than another participant regardless of that includes in fewer matches.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup runner-up (Argentina)
- 2025 MLS Cup champion (Inter Miami)
- 2025 MLS MVP
(Picture by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Photographs)
Final season’s Premier League Golden Boot winner, the game’s most deadly marksman is as soon as once more atop the scoring charts in England’s Premier League. Throughout all competitions, the 26-year-old has extra targets than video games performed, together with 4 tallies in his final two Champions League outings.
It’s been a banner yr. Final November, Haaland led his native Norway again to the World Cup for the primary time in 28 years after which fired them into the quarterfinals on the fundamental occasion with two targets in a 2-0 upset of five-time champions Brazil.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2025-26 Premier League Golden Boot winner (27 goals)
- 2025-26 FA Cup and League Cup winner (Manchester City)
- Led Norway to its first-ever World Cup quarterfinal
(Picture by Fran Santiago/Getty Photographs)
The Golden Ball recipient because the World Cup’s MVP, Rodri is clearly within the operating to reclaim the award he considerably surprisingly took house in 2024 whereas enjoying for Manchester Metropolis.
Rodri returned to Spain in August to play for Barcelona, turning an already-legitimate contender for the Champions League title into the sports activities books’ outright favourite.
Whereas the primary knock on Rodri’s candidacy is that he missed most of final season with a torn ACL whereas with CIty, that solely makes his current accomplishments extra spectacular.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup champion (Spain)
- 2026 World Cup Golden Ball (most outstanding player)
- 2025-26 FA Cup winner (Manchester City)
(Picture by Christina Pahnke – sampics/Corbis through Getty Photographs)
On a comically stacked staff that includes Kylian Mbappé and 2025 Ballon d’Or recipient Ousmane Dembélé, Olise was France’s standout participant on the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
These performances over the summer time within the U.S. rapidly thrust the London-born Bayern Munich playmaker into the world’s-best-player dialog.
He’s since gotten off to a quick begin with Bayern this time period, with a squad-topping seven targets in eight Bundesliga and Champions League video games.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup bronze medal winner (France)
- Set World Cup record for most assists at a tournament
- 2025-26 Bundesliga Player of the Season (Bayern Munich)
(Picture by Angel Martinez/Getty Photographs)
The 27-year-old Frenchman claimed his second straight World Cup Golden Boot award over the summer time, netting 10 occasions as Les Bleus completed fourth this summer time. He continues to attain at will in his third season with Actual Madrid; Mbappé has 11 targets in as many La Liga and UEFA Champions League video games forward of Wednesday’s Champions League journey to Leipzig.
Although he hasn’t but gained a European or Spanish title since leaving hometown membership PSG for Madrid, his case for the Ballon d’Dor is powerful. So don’t be stunned if he collects the glory for the primary time following 9 profession nominations.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup bronze medal winner (France)
- 2026 World Cup Golden Boot winner (10 goals)
- All-time top scorer in World Cup history (22 goals in 3 appearances)
(Picture by Ibrahim Ezzat/NurPhoto through Getty Photographs)
In a yr when there’s no clear Ballon d’Or frontrunner, the 19-year-old celebrity has as a lot movement as anybody. He simply gained the World Cup, and though he scored solely as soon as in La Roja’s eight video games on the match, the teen was an essential unsung cog within the champions’ team-first sport.
“That was the perfect efficiency I’ve ever seen from a 19-year-old, ever,” former USA and Villarreal striker Jozy Altidore instructed me the day after he lined the decider for Spanish-language community Telemundo. “Each time he misplaced the ball, he sprinted and acquired it again. These are issues folks do not take note of. He was so good, so disciplined, so skilled.”
With La Liga-leading Barcelona this season, Yamal has resumed his high-scoring methods. Regardless of manning the fitting wing, he trails solely Barça teammate Raphinha and Actual Madrid striker Kylian Mbappé in targets two months into the 2026-27 marketing campaign.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
- 2026 World Cup champion (Spain)
- 2025-26 LaLiga champion (Barcelona)
- 24 goals across 45 appearances for Barcelona in 2025-26
