1 month ago
73
Future contenders?
©TM/IMAGO
On Monday evening Ousmane Dembélé was awarded with what many believe to be the most prestigious individual award in football, when he won the 2025 Ballon d'Or. While it’s hard to say whether the golden orb comes close to lifting the Champions League or World Cup trophies, it’s undoubtedly an award that many of the world’s best players strive to win. Dembélé now joins an illustrious group of former winners from previous years, but with every winner comes a whole list of losers that missed out on the finest of margins. And in many cases, some of the most valuable players in the world are left clapping from their chairs and forcing a smile when the winner of the Ballon d’Or is ultimately announced.
The perfect example of this is none other than Barcelona winger Lamine Yamal. Although the 18-year-old star was awarded the Kopa trophy, he missed out on the biggest prize of the night despite currently being the most valuable player in the world with an impressive market value of €200 million. As such, Yamal goes to the top of our list of the most valuable players to not win the award when they were at their highest ever market value. And, as we can see in the table below, some of the very best players in the world over the last five to ten years have narrowly missed out on the award, despite their eye-watering market values.
Indeed, as we can see in the table above, Yamal is now the fourth player in football history to miss out on the Ballon d’Or despite having a market value of €200m. The first time it happened was in 2018, when Kylian Mbappé lost out to Luka Modrić, then Erling Haaland and Vinicius Junior both came behind Manchester City midfielder Rodri last year despite their incredible market values. Similar fates awaited Neymar in 2018 and Raheem Sterling in 2019, when they were forced to take second place to Modrić and Lionel Messi respectively, despite boasting the highest market values of their career. And, as we can see from the table, there have been no less than nine occasions when players that enjoy a market value of €150m missed out on the French award.
However, that’s not to say that the names on this list can’t go on to win the big prize. Whether it be Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala last year, when they both lost out despite a market value of €140m, or indeed Pedri this year who didn’t win the award despite also having the same market value, there’s nothing to say that any of these players won’t see their market values soar even higher in the years to come. And, with that, a better chance of winning the Ballon d’Or later in their careers.
