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This October the 2026 Ballon d’Or ceremony will take place in London, England, and only time will tell if it’s a closely contested affair, or if we see a runaway winner.
Certainly, previous Ballon d’Or awards offer up scant clues as to how competitive it will be at the business end of the voting this autumn.
In 2022, Karim Benzema gained 36.8% of the available points, in doing so garnering over a third of the collective acclaim from esteemed journalists from around the world.
Two years earlier, Lionel Messi’s successful 686 points tally just edged out the 679 accrued by Liverpool’s Virgil Van Dijk.
Some Ballon d’Or races have one individual dominate, while others finish neck-and-neck, a variance that should always be celebrated in any competitive arena.
So, what awaits us this time? Until all is revealed let’s revisit some of the tightest reckonings and, conversely, the occasions when one special player stood especially tall….
The narrowest margins
1972
Franz Beckenbauer – 81 points
Gerd Müller – 79 points
Günter Netzer – 79 points
German football enjoyed a sustained zenith in the early Seventies, with Die Mannschaft winning the 1972 Euro Championships and then subsequently the World Cup in 1974, their first global success for two decades.
On the club front, Bayern Munich reigned supreme, winning the European Cup for three years running.
Central to all this dominance were three world class talents who, in 1972, all competed for the most prestigious individual prize going.
It remains the closest three-way battle in Ballon d’Or history.
1977
Allan Simonsen – 74 points
Kevin Keegan – 71 points
Michel Platini – 70 points
Keegan and Platini would go on to secure five golden balls between them but here these two footballing giants were pipped by a striker later nicknamed ‘El pequeño gran’ (the littlest giant) by an adoring Barcelona faithful.
Prior to his three years at Camp Nou, however, Simonsen was a prolific finisher for Borussia Mönchengladbach, scoring for the Foals in the 1977 European Cup final, ironically against Keegan’s Liverpool.
1991
Jean-Pierre Papin – 141 points
Dejan Savićević – 42 points
Darko Pančev – 42 points
Lothar Matthäus – 42 points
Papin was an emphatic winner in 1991, the French forward hoovering up 32% of the points share after firing Marseille to a European Cup final.
What is interesting in this instance is the three-way tie for the runner-up spot. Savićević and Pančev both excelled for Red Star Belgrade as they achieved unprecedented continental success at the expense of Les Phocéens.
Inter Milan’s midfield powerhouse Matthäus, meanwhile, won the Ballon d’Or twelve months prior.
1996
Matthias Sammer – 144 points
Ronaldo Nazario – 143 points
Labelled the ‘last great libero’, Sammer’s consummate sweepering for Germany played a pivotal role in their Euro ’96 triumph. The Borussia Dortmund star even ventured forward and scored an extra-time winner versus Bulgaria in the quarter-finals.
As for Ronaldo, he had joined Barcelona that summer for a then world record fee, while his global repute as a phenomenal was all-but-attained. The Brazilian would win the Ballon d’Or one year later.
It is the only occasion the award has been won by a single point and, on receiving the golden ball, Sammer evoked a national hero.
“To be mentioned in the same breath as Franz Beckenbauer is an unbelievable honour for me"
2019
Lionel Messi - 686
Virgil Van Dijk – 679
Champions League winners that May, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool had seven players included in the 30-man shortlist, with four of them placing in the top ten.
For all of the goals and electricity that Mo Salah and Sadio Mane brought to the party perhaps it was fitting that Van Dijk accrued the most points of any Red, he being their leader and colossus at the back.
A thousand miles south in sunny Catalonia, Messi once again defied the norm, accumulating statistics that still astound.
That particular season he scored 51 goals and assisted 22 times for Blaugrana in 50 outings. This was his sixth of a record eight Ballon d’Or triumphs.
Comprehensive winners
1957
Alfredo di Stefano – 72 points
Billy Wright – 19 points
Duncan Edwards and Raymond Kopa – 16 points apiece
By every conceivable metric – from data to considered opinion – the Argentine was the greatest player of his generation, and the scale of this victory duly reflects this.
The ‘Blonde Arrow’ would also win the Ballon d’Or two years later for good measure.
By his career’s end, the feared forward had eight La Liga titles to his name, along with five European Cup successes, with Real Madrid.
1983
Michel Platini – 110 points
Kenny Dalglish – 26 points
Allan Simonsen – 25 points
As remarkable a player Dalglish unquestionably was there was only going to be one winner in 1983, Platini operating on a different level to so many of his peers.
Despite being first and foremost a creative number 10, the French star finished as Serie A’s leading marksman for three campaigns running between 1983 and 1985, each season corresponding with back-to-back-to-back Ballon d’or successes.
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1998
Zinedine Zidane – 244 points
Davor Šuker - 68 points
Ronaldo Nazario – 66 points
See above, only change the name.
Having recently orchestrated France’s World Cup triumph, ‘Zizou’ was untouchable in 1998, at the height of his powers for Juventus and Les Bleus.
His international team-mate, and fellow World Cup winner, Marcel Desailly once commented on the midfielder’s genius, adding a detail that is so often crucial to Ballon d’Or recognition, saying….
“A true artist. What he could do with the ball was incredible. Only Maradona could do the same. Zizou was also a player capable of rising to the occasion at important moments, and deciding games”
2011
Lionel Messi – 47.8%
Cristiano Ronaldo - 21.6%
Xavi - 9.2%
There have been several alterations to the Ballon d’Or voting across its distinguished history, not least for a five year period in the 2010s, when the numbers were announced as percentages.
No matter, because this best illustrates the scale of Lionel Messi’s dominance in 2011, when the Argentine magician garnered just shy of half of the entire points in play.
Converting Messi’s other seven victorious tallies we find that he has been commanding in other years too.
2009 – 32.7%
2010 – 22.6%
2011 – 47.8%
2012 – 41.6%
2015 – 44.3%
2019 – 24.3%
2021 – 22.7%
2023 – 31.3%
