On Monday, Sept. 22, the award ceremony for the 2025 Ballon d’Or took place. The Ballon d’Or is a prestigious soccer award given every year to the player deemed to have been the best in the world in the previous soccer season. The award is given based on several factors, including individual performance during the season, as well as team achievements.
The winner of the 2025 Ballon d’Or was Ousmane Dembélé. Dembélé is a French forward, who plays for the soccer club Paris Saint-Germain. Dembélé had an incredible season in terms of individual performance, tallying 35 goals as well as contributing 16 assists in 53 games. Dembélé also had many team achievements, including winning the Ligue 1, Coupe de France, French super cup, and Champions League.
Almost every soccer fan can agree that Dembélé winning the Ballon d’Or was fair; however, one thing that sparked controversy was the player who came in 5th place in the rankings, Brazilian forward Raphinha. Raphinha had 34 goals and 22 assists in 57 games, which are comparable with Dembélé’s stats. As for team achievements, Raphinha won the Spanish Super Cup, Copa del Ray, and Laliga title. These achievements are a little subpar compared to Dembélé’s, though they are still very respectable and good.
While people may have not thought he should have won the Ballon d’Or, many people believed that Raphinha should have placed higher, especially since some of the players higher than Raphinha had worse stats than him. For example, the player who finished 2nd in the ranking was Spanish forward and teammate of Raphinha, Lamine Yamal. Yamal only had 18 goals and 28 assists over 55 appearances. These individual stats are inferior to Raphinha’s, and since Raphinha and Yamal play on the same team, they have the same team awards.
Based on these stats, Raphinha has a very strong case to be ranked above Yamal, and many soccer fans believe he should have been ranked in 2nd place instead of Yamal.
Avid soccer fan and junior Patrick Looney believed that Raphinha should have been ranked higher.
“I had no problem with Dembele winning the award, at the end of the day he definitely deserves it, but I thought Raphinha got robbed of a higher ranking,” Looney said.
Looney continued to explain why he thought Raphinha should have been ranked higher. “Raphinha definitely had a better season than Yamal and other people higher than him, so I was disappointed to see him ranked so low,” Looney said.
For more information on the Ballon d’Or award, visit @ballondorofficial on Instagram.
