Every football fan knew the 2025 Ballon D’or winner was Ousmane Dembele but after recent editions of these awards saw other non-obvious winners, it looked like the same event was about to happen again. 

Last year’s Ballon D’or winner, Rodri, was one of the most controversial winners. The whole footballing world thought Vinicius Junior should be the winner of the coveted trophy. 

I mean, Real Madrid in the season leading to the 2024 Ballon D’or ceremony won five trophies: the Champions League, LaLiga, the Uefa Super Cup, the Spanish Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup. 

Rodri on the other hand only had two trophies to his name - the Euros and the Premier League. We can argue that winning trophies is not the only criteria for winning the highest individual award of any football player. 

But as an individual, Vini Jr. was the star man for Real Madrid scoring 15 goals and recording 5 assists in 26 appearances in LaLiga only. 

That was his best season as a player for any club. 

So for him to be crowned the winner of the Ballon D’or 2024 just seemed like the right thing to do. 

Football fans were disappointed to hear that Real Madrid will not be attending the ceremony hinting the possibility of the award going to Rodri and the fears of many was confirmed when Rodri was called up as the winner of the award. 

You can almost see that this was about to repeat itself when Lamine Yamal was tipped to win ahead of Dembele after the Frenchman’s impressive season. 

Yamal mustered 9 very unimportant league goals for Barcelona out of the 102 goals that got them the league. He scored 5 times in the Champions League bringing him to 14 goals in the season. 

Surely that should not be impressive enough. 

But then several fans believed the 18 year old was prime to be the youngest player to set his hands on the trophy. 

Much to the surprise of Barcelona fans, it was former player Dembele who clinched the trophy but this should not be up for debate.

In fact, it should be considered a redemption arc that has gone its full lifecycle. 

The once injury prone Dembele who could not muster double figures during his five year stay with the Spanish side netted 21 times in 29 appearances for PSG in the Ligue One. 

Take a look at his stats for last season: 

While he may not have the many goals and assists as Yamal did in his international games for his country, his workrate was astonishing. 

Stats do not do justice to his gameplay as a player for PSG and France. 

Everyone could see, especially during the Champions League final vs Inter Milan the kind of passion he had and how he is able to help his team. 

He started as the striker but was dictating the play from the start to the finish. Even though he was not on the scoreboard for a goal, the Inter Milan defense could not stop him as he set up Doue for the 2nd and Kvicha for the 4th in the 5-0 thumping of Inter Milan. 

Yamal was incredible, at least for his age, according to Former Barcelona midfielder Emmanuel Petit who told EscapistMagazine that ““He dribbles past players like it’s the PlayStation and he makes defenders look like cones, he has such a high ceiling, he could become even better than Messi. Messi won eight Ballons d’Or, Yamal will have motivation to go even further, he’s a joy to watch.”

Well for now, Dembele can bask in the glory of completing football as we normally say and Yamal could try again even though he faces more competition now.