The Biggest Surprises From the 2026 Ballon d’Or Results
The Ballon d’Or is done and dusted for another year, with Harry Kane standing tall when all was said and done.
The Englishman was a deserving winner after an outrageous season with both Bayern Munich and England, but while there can be few complaints about that honor, the overall ceremony still featured a handful of outcomes that left fans scratching their heads.
From surprising finishes in the Ballon d’Or voting to controversial award winners, here are five big shocks from the 2026 Ballon d’Or ceremony.
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Bruno Fernandes—27th in Ballon d’Or Voting
Look, nobody’s arguing that Bruno Fernandes should have won the whole thing, but to see him as low as 27th, just one place ahead of Al Qadsiah’s Julián Quiñones, is mindblowing.
The Manchester United captain may well be a victim of his recent slump, which is unfair considering the judging period was supposed to end on July 19. Across the 2025–26 campaign, he broke the Premier League record for most assists in a single season and was crowned the division’s Player of the Year, only to finish lower than five different Premier League players in the Ballon d’Or voting.
Competition is fierce, but few would have complained had Fernandes landed in the top 15.
Fabián Ruiz—10th in Ballon d’Or Voting
Working in Fabián Ruiz’s favor is the fact he won literally everything. He’s a regular starter for the Paris Saint-Germain side that retained the Champions League and lifted the Ligue 1 title, and he added the World Cup to his cabinet after a glamorous summer with Spain. Those accolades make him tough to ignore.
And yet, if you break it down, Fabián can consider himself fortunate to have landed as high as 10th.
Across the 2025–26 Ligue 1 season, Fabián played just 20 matches, 13 of which were starts. He then went to the World Cup and started four of Spain’s eight games. He ended the entire season with three goals and six assists in a total of 2,634 minutes for club and country. For comparison, Kane ended 2025–26 with 5,223 minutes in the tank.
You can’t argue with his trophy haul, but did he really have a better individual season than Jude Bellingham or Pau Cubarsí behind him?
Michael Olise—9th in Ballon d’Or Voting
One place ahead of Fabián in the voting was Michael Olise, who deserved to be in with a genuine chance to lift the trophy.
In 52 games for Bayern Munich last season, the Frenchman racked up 22 goals and 31 assists, and this summer brought a further seven assists at the World Cup—a tournament record. Those are utterly mindboggling numbers that perhaps suffered being compared to the even-more-mindboggling return from eventual winner Kane.
Unfortunately for Olise, when you think of Bayern Munich, you think of Kane. When you think of France, it’s Kylian Mbappé. Still, he had the sort of season that should have seen him pushing the top five.
Unai Simón—Yashin Trophy Winner
Unai Simón conceded one goal en route to lifting the World Cup with Spain, and that accomplishment alone saw him crowned the best goalkeeper on the planet over the entire season.
If we actually consider the whole season, Simón will know he was fortunate. He conceded 54 goals in 37 La Liga games for an Athletic Club side that ended the season in 12th with a negative goal difference. Simón’s save percentage of 64.9% was bettered by no fewer than 16 stoppers in Spain’s top flight alone.
At the World Cup, Spain only conceded a total of 10 shots on target across the whole tournament, limiting Simón’s genuine involvement all summer.
The fact he started for Spain over Arsenal’s David Raya, who ended up in second, and seventh-placed Joan García of Barcelona, has won him this award.
And if you still don’t believe the World Cup has that much of an impact, García was La Liga’s best goalkeeper last season and ended up one place behind Cabo Verde’s Vozinha, who 99% of the voters did not even know existed until his stunning showing against, ironically, Simón’s Spain.
Lamine Yamal—Kopa Trophy Winner
Right, objectively, this was the right call. Considering Lamine Yamal came third in Ballon d’Or voting, he was always winning the Kopa Trophy. That being said ... a bit boring, isn’t it?
This is no knock on Yamal’s quality, but having already won it in the previous two years and clearly now transitioned from exciting youngster into global superstar, maybe he should be removed from contention. That’s how it is with the Golden Boy award, the natural alternative to the Kopa Trophy—once you’ve won it, you’re out. We do not, in 2026, need to hear that Yamal is a top young talent. Yawn.
Yamal even said it himself. “This one should have been for Pau Cubarsí,” he sighed as he accepted the prize, desperate to move on from this chapter in his career.
Anyway, see you for Yamal’s 2027 acceptance speech ... and he’s even eligible for 2028.
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