The winner of the 2026 Ballon d'Or will be announced in just over a month's time at the London Palladium and there has been a great deal of debate, discourse, and arguments as to who is going to get the nod this time around.
Bayern Munich and England's Harry Kane, Barcelona and Spain's Lamine Yamal, and Real Madrid and France's Kylian Mbappe are seemingly the big three in terms of odds-on favorites, but depending on who'd you'd ask, there are certainly other shouts as well.
Paris Saint-Germain and Spain's Fabian Ruiz has been a name floated around as well as Barcelona and Spain's Rodri, and even PSG and Georgia's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has been backed even though his national team wasn't in any major international tournaments.
Nonetheless, even when the shortlist is narrowed down to just Kane, Yamal, and Mbappe, opinions are split given the success all three have had for club and country.
Raphinha Backs Lamine Yamal for the Ballon d’Or
For what it's worth, Lamine Yamal's Barcelona teammate Raphinha has made his feelings clear after Barcelona's recent 7-2 win over Racing Santander in La Liga.
In that match, Yamal missed a penalty in the first half, but still got his name on the scoresheet when he slotted home a cleverly-weight pass from Karim Adeyemi for Barcelona's seventh and final goal of the match.
After the match, Yamal took to Instagram to make a celebratory post that contained a total six slides, two of which showed the Spain international lying face down on the pitch after he had scored his goal.
It's almost as if the 19-year-old cut a rather relieved figure having missed a penalty in the first have and finally having found the back of the net midway through the second half.
On the Instagram post, Raphinha made a comment that read: "Eres un fenomeno
Mi balon de Oro" followed by the heart hands emoji, translating to: "You’re phenomenal. My Ballon d’Or winner."
Lamine Yamal Has Already Made Ballon d’Or History
It's going to be a tall ask for France Football to potentially choose Yamal over Kane after the season the England skipper had with Bayern and his six goals scored for the Three Lions at the World Cup.
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 Yamal, the young phenom tallied 25 goals and 20 assists from a total of 57 matches as he did miss a handful of matches for Barcelona through injury. So far this season, he's already tallied seven goals from six games and is off to a cracking start.
Even if Yamal doesn't win the Ballon d'Or next month, he's already become the first player ever to have been nominated for the honor three times before turning 20 years old.
This year marks the third straight year he's been nominated after having finished 8th in the 2024 running and as runner-up last year to Ousmane Dembele, though Yamal did win the Kopa Trophy last year.
