Who can stop Lamine Yamal dominating the Ballon d'Or for the next decade? Predicting the next 10 winners of the Golden Ball

Tellpad

Sep 24, 2025 - 21:40

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Who can stop Lamine Yamal dominating the Ballon d'Or for the next decade? Predicting the next 10 winners of the Golden Ball

Lamine Yamal won his second consecutive Kopa Trophy on Monday night, while at the same time finishing as runner up in the men's Ballon d'Or vote to Ousmane Dembele. This is not normal, of course. The kid is still only 18, which makes us think that we're witnessing the dawning of a new era of domination by a single player.

Indeed, Yamal's prodigious talent has already provoked predictions that the winger anointed Lionel Messi's heir - even by the man himself - might even surpass the Argentine's historic haul of eight Ballons d'Or.

And that got everyone at GOAL thinking about who might challenge Yamal for the title of the world's best player over the next decade.

Below, we've tried to predict the next 10 recipients of the trophy based on talent, upcoming tournaments and even a few hypothetical transfers...

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2026: Kylian Mbappe

Yamal is being widely tipped to go one better next year and take home the Ballon d'Or for 2026. However, several superstar strikers, including Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe have made strong starts to the new season - and all three play for countries with a real shot at World Cup glory next summer.
Yamal does, too, of course, but we've got a sneaking suspicion that Mbappe will finally lift the Ballon d'Or after winning a second consecutive European Golden Shoe with a resurgent Real Madrid and becoming the World Cup's all-time leading goalscorer.
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2027: Mohamed Salah

Despite a decade of sustained excellence, Mohamed Salah has never even made the Ballon d'Or podium, with this year's fourth-placed finish representing his best-ever result in the voting.
However, we're predicting (hoping) that one of the most under-valued players in world football finally gets his flowers in 2027 at the age of 35, after enjoying a successful final season at Liverpool and winning the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt.