Who will emerge as the 2026 Ballon d’Or favorite?
There was a time when settling on the best male soccer player in the world was easy. Between 2008 and 2023, the answer was almost exclusively Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Luka Modrić and Karim Benzema disrupted the pair’s Ballon d’Or duopoly in 2018 and 2022, respectively, but the ballot during that period generally only had two names on it.
That is certainly not the case anymore. The Ballon d’Or field is wide open, although this week’s Champions League quarter-final ties could shift things. The opportunity is there for a frontrunner or two to emerge ahead of a 103-day stretch of big games with big stakes that will culminate with the World Cup final on 19 July. The award will be decided over this period.
Harry Kane could be a top contender. The 32-year-old has scored an incredible 54 goals in all competitions for club and country this season – the latest came on Tuesday in Bayern Munich’s 2-1 win over Real Madrid. Champions League success with Bayern and World Cup glory with England would surely make Kane the first English Ballon d’Or winner since Michael Owen in 2001.
Kylian Mbappé is another possible candidate. The forward is the top scorer in the Champions League and La Liga this season and like Kane could get his hands on the World Cup trophy this summer. Then there’s Lamine Yamal, whose raw numbers may not be as eye-catching as those of Kane or Mbappé, but his trickery and outside-of-the-boot passes certainly are. Is there anyone more naturally gifted in the game than the Barcelona and Spain teenager?
These are the obvious names, but the field is so open that an outsider could become more than that with all the consequential big games of the season coming up over the next three months. Would an Arsenal double and England World Cup triumph lead to Declan Rice winning the Ballon d’Or? What if Paris Saint-Germain pull off a Champions League repeat and Portugal win the World Cup – would that make Vitinha the best player in the world? The Messi v Ronaldo days are long gone.
Why wouldn’t Folarin Balogun be the USMNT’s starting No 9?
There aren’t many forwards in better form than Folarin Balogun right now. The Monaco striker has scored in each of his last five appearances for the Ligue 1 club with his latest strike in a 2-1 win over Marseille on Sunday arguably the best of his career. The chip from a tight angle over the head of the opposition goalkeeper and into the far corner was the finish of a forward at the peak of his powers.
Not that Mauricio Pochettino seemed overly satisfied with what Balogun is currently offering in the US men’s national team’s most recent match. Rather than giving the in-form 24-year-old another opportunity to build momentum and chemistry with his teammates in one of the final few run-outs before the World Cup, Pochettino instead played Christian Pulisic in Balogun’s position.
The experiment went as well as expected. While Pulisic got on the dribble on occasion and even posed a threat in the Portugal box once or twice, his hold-up play was lacking. The US struggled to build attacks off the Milan man whose body positioning when receiving possession is more like that of a winger – because he is one.
Pochettino’s decision to start Pulisic as a No 9 against Portugal might have been an attempt to play the US’s best attacker into form rather than a statement on Balogun’s place in the team. Nonetheless, Balogun’s club form just underlines the futility of the whole exercise. The US don’t need a different center forward when they already have one this good.
Will Roberto De Zerbi’s style of play save or sink Tottenham Hotspur?
Roberto De Zerbi has a five-year contract for a seven-game job as Tottenham Hotspur’s new manager. Hired to solve the problems that stumped Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor before him, the Italian will take charge of his first match this weekend when the north London outfit face Sunderland. By then, some of De Zerbi’s ideas may have taken root.
Or not. There’s no doubting De Zerbi’s tactical chops – he was once hailed by Pep Guardiola as “one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years”. What is doubtful, though, is whether he can reshape Tottenham to play his way while guiding them away from relegation danger at the same time. Is seven games enough for Spurs to embrace De Zerbi-ball?
At Brighton, De Zerbi needed six games to register his first win. At Marseille, he made a better first impression, winning four of his first five league games, but this was after a full preseason and summer transfer window during which players tailored to De Zerbi’s approach were brought in. Spurs have neither of those things right now.
They instead have a squad of players ill-equipped to play out from the back under pressure, as De Zerbi likes. They also lack creative ball progressors to move possession quickly through the lines. He is an attack-minded coach, but Tottenham are ranked a lowly 12th for touches in the opposition box this season. They’re also 14th for big chances (as Opta defines them) created.
Maybe De Zerbi will fix all this, but plenty before him have tried and failed to fix this team – and this club. Before he can even begin to think about the long-term, he must show he can make an impact in the short-term. Seven games is no time to judge a manager. That, however, is all De Zerbi has to work with. At least for now.
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