Updated: 21 Jul 2026 15:18 BST |
3 min read
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Harry Kane is the current favourite for the Ballon d’Or. The striker scored an incredible 73 goals for Bayern Munich and England during the 2025/26 season. That’s one more than Cristiano Ronaldo’s best-ever scoring campaign and clearly one of the best individual seasons any player has ever had. So it should come as no surprise that bookmakers have made him the favourite to win the Ballon d’Or.
He was the favourite before the World Cup too, thanks to his 61 goals in 51 games for Bayern Munich. During the tournament, Kylian Mbappe was briefly the favourite, with Lamine Yamal also briefly moving into first position before the award’s organisers released a statement insisting that the World Cup would not be the big decider in who takes home the trophy: “Yes, winning the World Cup helps, but it does not guarantee a Ballon d’Or. To win it, you need to have been the best player of the season, not only of the World Cup.”
Sure, but that has to trickle down to the voters too. Recency bias definitely plays a part in how the 100 journalists vote for the award, as do the PR campaigns that clubs and players run to try to sway the votes. On top of that, club trophies play a big part in influencing who the journalists decide to vote for. And these factors are where Kane could fall short.
Kane scored an insane amount of goals in 2025/26, helping Bayern Munich win the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, but they fell short at the semi-final of the Champions League, just as England fell short at the semi-final of the World Cup. And in none of those competitions was Kane considered his team’s best player. Michael Olise led France in assists at the World Cup, but his own shooting boots deserted him for Les Bleus, having won Bundesliga Player of the Season ahead of Kane. Olise’s team-mate Mbappe won both the World Cup Golden Boot and the Champions League Golden Boot ahead of Kane, which will surely be a mark against the ex-Spurs striker when it comes to considering who the world’s best player was over the past 12 months. Luka Modric won the Ballon d’Or in 2018 when his Croatia fell short at the World Cup. But he had won the Champions League with Real Madrid in the same season.
Journalists love a narrative. It’s why sometimes when you read a match report, there’s 200 or 300 words on the wooden horse of Troy or a classic Only Fools and Horses episode before the writer mentions a ball going into a net. Unfortunately for Kane, he has no narrative. He’s just a very, very efficient goalscorer. Just like Robert Lewandowski was before him at Bayern Munich. After the World Cup final, Spain’s young duo of Yamal and Pau Cubarsi have taken control of their own stories. They both won La Liga with Barcelona and were the third- and fourth-youngest players to play in a World Cup final. Now they’re world champions too. They are the future of football, unlike 32-year-old Kane. Journalists, they love being ahead of the curve too. Patting themselves on the back for their excellent insight. ‘See, I told you Cubarsi was brilliant.’
There’s also the Messi’s last dance narrative. He took Argentina all the way to the final, but his team of thugs could not overpower Spain. The result no doubt holds him back despite an excellent semi-final where he assisted both Argentina’s goals against England. A semi-final where Kane was as much a centre-back as a centre-forward. The Ballon d’Or organisers have told the voters to ignore things like this, but they won’t. It’ll be a fresh memory when they come to cast their vote.
As will Rodri’s metronomic passing, breaking his own record for the most completed passes in a World Cup tournament. Okay, his Manchester City side won none of the big trophies this season, but that’s part of the narrative too. Imagine how bad Man City would have been without his brilliance? Would Bayern Munich have won the Bundesliga without Kane? Quite probably. Take away his 36 goals and Bayern Munich still would have scored 86 goals, which is 16 more than second-placed Borussia Dortmund managed.
Kane was definitely the world’s best goalscorer in 2025/26. Was he the world’s best player too? Quite possibly. But when it comes to voting for the Ballon d’Or, he just doesn’t have the narrative.
