Ballon d'or 2026 ranking

Lamine Yamal leads with an ELO of 1,886, ahead of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (1,826) and Ousmane Dembélé (1,818). Ranked over 5,064 duels between 30 contenders, last updated October 6, 2026.

Who deserves the 2026 Ballon d'Or? Rank the best footballers: Mbappé, Rodri, Vinicius Jr, Haaland and more in this interactive duel.

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.