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Football

Best Ballon d'or winners

The community has spoken. Discover the world ranking, compare it to yours and see how everyone else voted.

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46contenders high-voltage

258votes

1TopList

0commentsUpdated on 10/17/2026 at 07:00 AM

Johan Cruyff (1971, 1973, 1974)1625

The worldwide ranking generated by 258 votes

46 / 46

Johan Cruyff (1971, 1973, 1974)1625

Andriy Shevchenko (2004)1594

Franz Beckenbauer (1972) (1976)1592

Marco van Basten1586

Lothar Matthäus (1990)1575

Pavel Nedvěd (2003)1559

Lev Yashin (1963)1557

Alfredo Di Stéfano (1957, 1959)1554

George Weah (1995)1546

#10

Michel Platini (1983) (1984) (1985)1546

#11

Jean-Pierre Papin (1991)1540

#12

Lionel Messi (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) (2015) (2019) (2021) (2023)1534

#13

Zinedine Zidane (1998)1529

#14

Eusébio (1965)1528

#15

Ronaldinho (2005)1528

#16

Gerd Müller (1970)1524

#17

Cristiano Ronaldo (2008) (2013) (2014) (2016) (2017)1518

#18

George Best (1968)1516

#19

Ruud Gullit (1987)1511

#20

Oleg Blokhin (1975)1505

#21

Paolo Rossi (1982)1502

#22

Luís Figo (2000)1502

#23

Matthias Sammer (1996)1501

#24

Fabio Cannavaro (2006)1498

#25

Roberto Baggio (1993)1493

#26

Hristo Stoichkov (1994)1488

#27

Rodri (2024)1481

#28

Michael Owen (2001)1477

#29

Kaká (2007)1477

#30

Gianni Rivera (1969)1475

#31

Allan Simonsen (1977)1475

#32

Karim Benzema (2022)1473

#33

Igor Belanov (1986)1469

#34

Omar Sívori (1961)1465

#35

Raymond Kopa (1958)1460

#36

Ousmane Dembélé (2025)1458

#37

Luka Modrić (2018)1456

#38

Rivaldo (1999)1456

#39

Luis Suárez (1960)1452

#40

Josef Masopust (1962)1448

#41

Bobby Charlton (1966)1437

#42

Kevin Keegan (1978, 1979)1426

#43

Flórián Albert (1967)1424

#44

Denis Law (1964)1417

#45

Ronaldo Nazário (1997, 2002)1415

#46

Stanley Matthews (1956)1408

What the community says

Rank your favorite football players among all Ballon d'Or winners. Find your favorite across generations: Messi, Ronaldo, Zidane and more legends.

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.

How our rankings are made →