Why has Lamine Yamal stayed at the gates of winning the Ballon d'Or?

BarcelonaLamine Yamal traveled to London by private jet accompanied by his closest inner circle. Like Kylian Mbappé and Harry Kane, the Barcelona star had hopes of becoming the winner of a Ballon d'Or that the Briton would end up taking home, and he would have to settle for the Kopa Trophy, which rewards the best talent under 21 years of age. It is the third consecutive year that Lamine has received this award, although in this edition he hoped to take home the Ballon d'Or and that it would be Pau Cubarsí, who declined to go to the gala when he became aware that he would not be awarded, who would receive the distinction. These are the five main reasons that explain why he finished behind Kane and Mbappé in the election based on the vote of one hundred journalists from one hundred different countries.

A bumpy start to the season

If we look back at the start of the season, it must be taken into account that the 2025-26 campaign did not start well for Lamine. A pubic overload, which ended up developing into pubalgia, conditioned a very discreet start to the season while Kane started like a bolt of lightning: 13 goals in the first 10 matchdays of the Bundesliga. Lamine himself would publicly assess that he had had a complicated start to the season due to injuries and, even though he recovered from October onwards –he would close the campaign with notable figures: 24 goals and 18 assists in 45 matches–, he would get injured again in the final stretch of the season. In contrast, Kane would barely miss four games with Bayern, two of which due to rotation.

The Champions League toll

Lamine Yamal's performances directly impacted Barça's League title win, even though the blaugranes mathematically sealed it while he was injured. Regarding the rest of the titles, the team was eliminated from both the Cup and the Champions League at the hands of Atlético de Madrid. The elimination in the Champions League quarter-finals has weighed heavily on the votes for the Catalan star, despite him scoring against the mattress makers in the return leg at the Metropolitano and closing the competition with six goals and four assists in ten matches.

For its part, Kane's Bayern reached the semi-finals, where they were eliminated by the champion, PSG, in a goal-filled knockout tie. The British striker scored and assisted in the first leg defeat (5-4) in Paris and also scored the only goal in Munich in the draw (1-1) that condemned the Bavarians.

A quiet World Cup

In a World Cup year, this competition fully impacts the Ballon d'Or votes, which closed at the end of September. Lamine Yamal won the League and the Spanish Super Cup with Barça and was crowned world champion with the Spanish national team. Unlike the 2024 European Championship, where he introduced himself to the world in grand fashion by eliminating France in the semis with a stunning goal, the Rocafonda winger had a quiet World Cup: Rodri was chosen as the best player of the competition, while Pau Cubarsí was distinguished as the best young player.

At 19 years old, Lamine became the youngest player in history with a European Championship and a World Cup. But his prominence fell below expectations: he played all seven matches, despite arriving at the event hampered by an injury, and only found the net in the group stage, against Saudi Arabia. He himself was self-critical, but argued that he had arrived at the event physically hindered. England fell in the semifinals against Argentina (2-1), but before that Kane had scored six goals, with braces against Croatia and the DR Congo. The Englishman has scored 14 goals in World Cup final stages and has equaled Gerd Müller in fifth position as all-time top scorer.

The drift of votes towards Rodri and Fabián

If Lamine's World Cup was discreet, Rodri and Fabián were two of the players from the Spanish national team who shone the most. Furthermore, the latter had won the Champions League with PSG, although he had a secondary role during the season due to injuries. Vincent García, editor-in-chief of the magazine France Football and president of the Ballon d'Or jury, assessed to L'Équipe the phenomenon of the "vote splitting", especially between Lamine and Rodri. "There was a great dispersion of votes among the Spanish players, and the most important thing is that the Spanish national team was a compact team and a spectacular collective machine. That is why it was almost impossible for the jury members to highlight and favor a single specific individual performance".

Only Messi scored more goals in a single season

Kane closed the season with individual figures that explain why he won the Ballon d'Or (and also the trophy for top scorer, as well as the Golden Boot): 73 goals in 65 games between Bayern and England. Only Messi, who scored 82 in 69 games in the 2011-12 campaign, scored more. With his club –61 goals in 51 games– he won the Bundesliga, the German Super Cup and the Cup (with a hat trick in the final).