The final 30 nominees for this year's Ballon d'Or award are set to be finalized by September 8th before the official ceremony takes place in London later next month at the London Palladium. This years award focuses on the period from the beginning of August 2025 up until the end of this past July and there's an emphasis on key impacts in big matches for the nominees.
Bayern Munich and England's Harry Kane, Barcelona and Spain's Rodri, Barcelona and Spain's Lamine Yamal, Real Madrid and France's Kylian Mbappé, and Inter Miami and Argentina's Lionel Messi are among the frontrunners to get the nod this time around. However, Paris Saint-Germain manager Luis Enrique has other ideas.
"Ballon d’Or Winner Should be a PSG player”
Enrique has made it clear that he strongly believes the winner of the Ballon d'Or should be someone from PSG, after the Ligue 1 giants won the Champions League for the second year in a row and the league title. The Parisians became the first side since Real Madrid to win back-to-back European Cups after the La Liga giants won it three straight times in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
For Enrique, after his role in the Spanish national team winning the World Cup on top of his season with PSG, he sees Fabian Ruiz as a legitimate contender to win the Ballon d'Or.
"We have everything in the team, we’ve won the Champions League, Fabian [Ruiz] won the World Cup too, we have Ousmane Dembélé who won it last year. So clearly for me, Ballon d’Or should be a PSG player," the PSG manager explained earlier this week.
Does Enrique Have A Legitimate Point?
Sentiment alone is not something that's going to win any given player the Ballon d'Or, but have Fabian Ruiz or perhaps even Dembélé done enough to win it against the likes of either Kane or Mbappé?
Ruiz tallied 2 goals and 5 assists from a total of 34 appearances across all competitions for PSG last season, though he did miss a decent chunk of matches through a knee injury. For Spain at the World Cup, Ruiz was a solid presence in Luis de la Fuente's midfield, playing in six of their matches on their run to the title and scoring one of the two goals that sent them past Belgium in the quarterfinals in Los Angeles.
For Dembélé, Enrique managed his time in a way that the Frenchman was a bit of a Champions League specialist, given that he only made a total of 22 appearances in Ligue 1 from their 34 matches. Nonetheless, he finished last season with 20 goals and 11 assists; 8 goals and 1 of those assists came in the Champions League quarterfinals, semifinals, and final in Budapest, where they beat Arsenal on penalties. As far as contributions in big matches are concerned, Dembélé achieved the pinnacle of that last season, but is that enough to top Kane's season with Bayern and England?
Kane finished last season with an unprecedented 61 goals and 7 assists from 51 matches across all competitions for Bayern, helping them secure the domestic double (Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal). For England at the World Cup, the national team skipper tallied 6 goals and 1 assist in their run to the semifinals before getting knocked out by Argentina. Had England gone on to the final and beaten Spain, Kane would surely be the odds-on favorite to win the Ballon d'Or, but even the numbers alone seem to suggest he's done enough against Enrique's claim that it should go to a PSG player.
