‎Who will win the 2026 Ballon D'or? 🏆⚽

[sergiorus]

I’m surprised no one is talking about the shift that has taken place over the last 24 hours - Mbappé has overtaken Yamal, and the current odds are as follows:

Kane      - 70%
Mbappe  - 18%
Yamal     - 11%

In a market that evaluates the likelihood of who will end up higher - Mbappe or Yamal, Mbappe has become the clear favorite - 67%
https://polymarket.com/event/ballon-dor-2026-kylian-mbappe-or-lamine-yamal-to-finish-higher

Unexpected, right? Just a short while ago, Yamal was in the lead, but now he’s slipped back to third place. According to reports on Twitter citing insiders, the rankings are as follows: Kane, Mbappé, Yamal, Rodri, Messi. If it turns out to be exactly like that, the organizers of the award will need to seriously overhaul the mechanism for keeping things confidential until the official announcement of the results.

Someone in here wrote that rumours of Mbappe win started circulating (in Whatsapp groups or something, lmao).

That must have been what pumped his shares on Polymarket but it's so ridiculously fake, and the pump is with no volume too - just some people aping into illiquid books. I suppose the rumour was very localised too, maybe just in African communities or something.

Anyway, the Polymarket orderbook behavious has been indicating Kane's win for quite some time now.

[KTChampions]

I’m surprised no one is talking about the shift that has taken place over the last 24 hours - Mbappé has overtaken Yamal, and the current odds are as follows:

Kane      - 70%
Mbappe  - 18%
Yamal     - 11%

In a market that evaluates the likelihood of who will end up higher - Mbappe or Yamal, Mbappe has become the clear favorite - 67%
https://polymarket.com/event/ballon-dor-2026-kylian-mbappe-or-lamine-yamal-to-finish-higher

Unexpected, right? Just a short while ago, Yamal was in the lead, but now he’s slipped back to third place. According to reports on Twitter citing insiders, the rankings are as follows: Kane, Mbappé, Yamal, Rodri, Messi. If it turns out to be exactly like that, the organizers of the award will need to seriously overhaul the mechanism for keeping things confidential until the official announcement of the results.

Someone in here wrote that rumours of Mbappe win started circulating (in Whatsapp groups or something, lmao).

That must have been what pumped his shares on Polymarket but it's so ridiculously fake, and the pump is with no volume too - just some people aping into illiquid books. I suppose the rumour was very localised too, maybe just in African communities or something.

Anyway, the Polymarket orderbook behavious has been indicating Kane's win for quite some time now.

I think the reason is that insiders know how certain journalists voted, so they have fairly accurate information that Mbappé is ahead of Yamal. But since they don't have full information (whether Mbappe is ahead of Kane), there is still some uncertainty in the market. I don't agree that this is a completely fake pump without volumes - liquidity amounts to tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars if you look at all the markets dedicated to this event. There is still enough money at stake here to make it worth placing bets even now.

[Adbitco]

Any day any time, I would pick Raphinha over Yamal so long as Raphinha is in a better form than him. It's just that Yamal has a better PR than Raphinha if not I see no reason why that guy has been sidelined over Yamal. It pains me so much that Raphinha was sidelined last season for the Balloon d'Or race and Yamal was picked instead. This goes to show that you can actually be the best but you're not recognised if you don't have the PR. I checked the Champions League team if the season for last season, i didn't even see Yamal there, I checked the just concluded WC list for players of the tournament, his still no where to be found. I wonder the criteria his going to win the WC with. The Balloon d'Or is an individual award spanning over your performance for the whole year which is the major criteria and Yamal isn't the best individual player for last season.

[suzanne5223]

I’m surprised no one is talking about the shift that has taken place over the last 24 hours - Mbappé has overtaken Yamal, and the current odds are as follows:

Kane      - 70%
Mbappe  - 18%
Yamal     - 11%

In a market that evaluates the likelihood of who will end up higher - Mbappe or Yamal, Mbappe has become the clear favorite - 67%
https://polymarket.com/event/ballon-dor-2026-kylian-mbappe-or-lamine-yamal-to-finish-higher

Unexpected, right? Just a short while ago, Yamal was in the lead, but now he’s slipped back to third place. According to reports on Twitter citing insiders, the rankings are as follows: Kane, Mbappé, Yamal, Rodri, Messi. If it turns out to be exactly like that, the organizers of the award will need to seriously overhaul the mechanism for keeping things confidential until the official announcement of the results.

I don't check the latest update on the percentage but I am not surprised that Mbappe is taking the second spot, which is something I stated weeks ago: the people with the highest chance of winning this year's Ballon d'Or are Kane and Mbappe.
The chance of Yamal winning the Ballon d'Or next year may be different, but I don't see him winning it this year.

[Xackie]

Well, imagine Lamine Yamal winning the Ballon d'Or before Mbappe. The award doesn't define a player, whoever wins i agree, deserves it. All the nominated players are all I love and wish for any of them to win. However, I love for Harry Kane to win the Ballon d'Or over Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe. From the way i see the ceremony approaching, Mbappe looks like the top gee for the award.

There was a post i saw yesterday on my WhatsApp status,  and someone said amongst all the players that won the world cup that non is qualified to win the Ballon D'or award and he posted the source of the information though I don't know how true that was but tomorrow we will know and see who gets to lift the award. If Lamine Yamal is no longer there perhaps Harry Kane will be the winner because of the advantage of trophies he has over Mbappe but I am not the chief judge just my opinion and observation.

What I know is that whoever wins this ballon d'or,  people will still have something bad to say and when you look at it's somehow true. The 3 main favorite lacks things that will surely raise questions later. Kane won bundesliga and another trophy with his European golden boot but he wasn't the best player in any of the competitions he played. Mbappe has 3 golden boot but no trophy and no best player in any competitions he played in , even though he was the top scorer.  Yamal too won 3 trophies but wasn't really impactful in both the Champions league and the FIfa world cup. So anybody that win this ballon d'or among this 3 favorites will cause issues.

[Ale88]

Well everyone is entitled to their opinions and we all feel right in our standards. There will always be criticism of Messi as well as of Ronaldo but for you to downplay Messi’s effort at the World Cup as playing against weak teams, there are no weak teams at the World Cup my friend.

Are you sure there are no weak teams in the World Cup? I challenge you to name a single player from countries such as Jordan, Tunisia, Cape Verde (of course Vozinha doesn't count since he became famous during/after the WC), Qatar, Haiti, Curaçao, Saudi Arabia and Iraq for example. Not too many, just one per team. I bet you can't. So are you still sure Jordan are a big team?

So is your definition of weak team by how popular their players are? It’s just like the argument that because the premier league is the most popular and watched league, it is the best.

Well, I don't recall any team of unknown players winning a World Cup, so... Anyway, you are perfectly free to think Jordan and Iraq are strong national teams. Not sure who will share this kind of idea but it's ok.

I may not be able to mention names of players from all those teams but the fact they qualified for the World Cup means they worked for it and they’re there because they won other teams. We have teams like Italy and Nigeria who didn’t make it even with all their popular players.

You do realize that many of those teams qualified only because:

• FIFA hugely increased the number of spots for certain federations
• CONCACAF had their best teams - USA, Mexico, and Canada - automatically qualified for the WC as host countries

If it wasn't for those changes, many of those teams wouldn't have made it.

Argentina had nothing up their sleeves but Lionel Messi, you could literally see it in every of their games, he carried the whole team at 39.
Because Messi plays for Miami at the MLS has nothing to do with his World Cup performance. If you say you watched the World Cup and Messi doesn’t deserve the golden ball, fine ! You have your opinion but I think you’re lying to yourself, just like FIFA did to hide from the banter from people like you.

The Ballon d'Or, in theory, is awarded to the best player over a full football season. Messi was on holiday in the US for 90% of the season, then he played in the World Cup. Are you really telling me that playing 7-8 matches in a season is enough to win the Ballon d'Or? Because to me it looks like an insult for all the other players who play in competitive leagues.

So the football they play in the US is Vacation?

For players who came from European football, yes. Otherwise why do they move there when they are almost 40 years old? Messi, Suarez, Busquets, Son, Lloris, Müller, Lewandowski, Reus... The moment will see players in their prime moving to the MLS then I'll change my mind.

[Obim34]

What I know is that whoever wins this ballon d'or,  people will still have something bad to say and when you look at it's somehow true. The 3 main favorite lacks things that will surely raise questions later. Kane won bundesliga and another trophy with his European golden boot but he wasn't the best player in any of the competitions he played. Mbappe has 3 golden boot but no trophy and no best player in any competitions he played in , even though he was the top scorer.  Yamal too won 3 trophies but wasn't really impactful in both the Champions league and the FIfa world cup. So anybody that win this ballon d'or among this 3 favorites will cause issues.

Of course, each of us has our favorites, and we don't need to share similar opinion, our views can be different, with reasons why a player deserves the recognition of the award over another player. Among the three top contenders, I feel Harry Kane deserves it, and I would love for him to win the Ballon d'Or over Mbappe, who is most people's favorite.

[Hyphen(-)]

I’m surprised no one is talking about the shift that has taken place over the last 24 hours - Mbappé has overtaken Yamal, and the current odds are as follows:

Kane      - 70%
Mbappe  - 18%
Yamal     - 11%

In a market that evaluates the likelihood of who will end up higher - Mbappe or Yamal, Mbappe has become the clear favorite - 67%
https://polymarket.com/event/ballon-dor-2026-kylian-mbappe-or-lamine-yamal-to-finish-higher

Unexpected, right? Just a short while ago, Yamal was in the lead, but now he’s slipped back to third place. According to reports on Twitter citing insiders, the rankings are as follows: Kane, Mbappé, Yamal, Rodri, Messi. If it turns out to be exactly like that, the organizers of the award will need to seriously overhaul the mechanism for keeping things confidential until the official announcement of the results.

With this, I think Kane can win the award because the margin is very high. Imagine having 70%, it means that he can win this award after series of consideration and he actually deserves the award. Others still have time to win it another season; both Yamal and Mbappe still have time to win the award another time, they have started to perform well again this season which will count in the next year award, any of them that have the opportunity to win more trophies and have more goals and assists this season and have good individual performance can await the next award, but for this award, I think Kane actually deserves the award.

[Creeper0]

With this, I think Kane can win the award because the margin is very high. Imagine having 70%, it means that he can win this award after series of consideration and he actually deserves the award. Others still have time to win it another season; both Yamal and Mbappe still have time to win the award another time, they have started to perform well again this season which will count in the next year award, any of them that have the opportunity to win more trophies and have more goals and assists this season and have good individual performance can await the next award, but for this award, I think Kane actually deserves the award.

From my point of view, Harry Kane is a worthy candidate for this award. However, it would not be surprising if Lamine Yamal or Kylian Mbappe won the award. Because all three players are worthy players to win the award. However, considering the achievements and performance, Kane should win the award. But in the end, there is still uncertainty about who will win the Ballon d'Or award. I am not too worried about this award, because I hope that the award will go to the right person.