The Ballon d'Or voting turned into a… thriller that was decided by a narrow margin and featured a last-minute upset, as revealed by *France Football* director Vincent Garcia. Harry Kane managed to pull off a last-minute upset over Kylian Mbappé.
“Mbappé was leading the race for most of the voting period, before Kane made a strong comeback. The point difference between Kane and Mbappé is extremely small—even smaller than the difference between Rodri and Vinícius in 2024, which stood at 41 points,” he said.
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At the same time, he argued that Lamine Yamal lost quite a few votes to… Rodri, as those who voted based on winning the World Cup “split” their votes between the two Spaniards. “I sincerely believe that Rodri took votes away from Lamine. On the Spanish national team—which won the World Cup—there was a clear split in the votes between Rodri and Lamine, which cost them dearly. There was a significant split in the votes among the Spanish players. Furthermore, the Spanish national team was a cohesive unit, an impressive collective machine. “For this very reason, it was nearly impossible for the members of the selection committee to single out and reward a specific individual performance,” he said.
He did not reveal who he voted for in the Golden Ball, but he did announce that the votes would be made public on Saturday. “I voted for someone who didn’t win—and I believe he deserved to win—but you’ll see it all on Saturday, when France Football publishes the complete and detailed results,” he emphasized.
It should be noted that 100 journalists from the top 100 countries in the FIFA world rankings are eligible to vote. Each journalist selects 10 players from the list of 30, ranking them in descending order of preference. Players receive points based on the position assigned to them by each voter:
• 1st: 15
points• 2nd: 12
points• 3rd: 10
points• 4th: 8
points• 5th: 7 points•
6th: 5
points• 7th: 4
points• 8th: 3
points• 9th: 2 points•
10th: 1 point
*photo source: AP
