In an interview given at the end of 2025 and made available to the public only at the end of January this year, striker Raphinha, from Barcelona and the Brazilian national team, stated that he felt “upset” with the result of the most recent Ballon d’Or.
In the opinion of the 29-year-old player, who had the best season of his career in 2024/2025 (34 goals and 26 assists in 57 matches, in a total of four championships), he deserved more than any professional colleague to receive the best in the world award from the French magazine France Football.
French striker Ousmane Dembélé, 28, from Paris Saint-Germain, who in the 24/25 season, in five competitions, accumulated 35 goals and 16 assists in 53 games, was crowned at the ceremony held last September in a vote by one hundred specialized journalists.
Dembélé, however, won the Champions League with PSG, the main interclub in Europe (and the world), which, according to the Brazilian, made all the difference.
“I knew that the chance to win was very difficult because the Champions League counts a lot in this award,” Raphinha told journalist Isabela Pagliari on the Sofascore YouTube channel.
“An individual award”, he continued, “cannot be based on a competition. I deserved to have come first for what I delivered in the season, for the titles I won, for the numbers I achieved, for everything I delivered on the field. I deserved to have won.”
In the aforementioned season, Raphinha won the Spanish Championship, the Copa del Rey (equivalent to the Copa do Brasil) and the Spanish Super Cup with Barça. Dembélé, in addition to the Champions League, won the French Championship, the French Cup and the French Super Cup with PSG.
Considering that the level of competitiveness in Spain is higher than in France, what weighed in Dembélé’s favor was reaching the top of Europe.
“As it is an award that is practically based on a single competition, it is deserved for Dembélé to win”, concluded the number 11 and captain of the blue and maroon team, who finished fifth in the Ballon d’Or. Also ahead of him were Lamine Yamal (2nd, Barcelona), Vitinha (3rd, PSG) and Mohamed Salah (4th, Liverpool).
There is, however, an error in Raphinha’s consideration. I even agree that what made the difference for Dembélé was winning the Champions League, but it has not been decisive in choosing the winner.
Of the last six times the Ballon d’Or was awarded, from 2019 to now (in 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the award did not take place), only on two occasions had the winner been champion of the Champions League: Dembélé, in 2025, and another Frenchman, Benzema (Real Madrid at the time), in 2022.
It wasn’t enough for Vinicius Junior, in addition to a fantastic season, to win the Champions League with Real – including scoring in the final – to win the Ballon d’Or in 2024. The chosen one was midfielder Rodri, from Manchester City, European Cup champion with Spain. Injustice? Yes.
Liverpool won the 2019 Champions League, and the Ballon d’Or went to Messi (Barcelona), who also won the trophy in 2021 (at PSG), with the European champion being Chelsea, and in 2023 (at Inter Miami), with Haaland’s Manchester City winning the Champions League.
Therefore, being in the team that triumphed in the Champions League to obtain the Ballon d’Or is not decisive, at least not recently, which makes Raphinha’s explanation unfounded.
In his case, what he needed to succeed was having a bigger lobby in the voting press, which is corporatist in preferring European athletes (Rodri surpassed Vini Jr. like this), or being someone who attracts votes just because of the name (in this case, surname) he has. It was missing Messi.
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