Jude Bellingham has missed out on the Ballon d'Or top 10 by a single place. The Real Madrid midfielder finished 11th as the rankings from 11th to 30th were revealed on Monday afternoon, confirming the final 10 contenders who will learn their fate at tonight's ceremony at the London Palladium.
The drip-feed of results has become part of Ballon d'Or day, and this year's list carries some brutal verdicts. Bellingham, an England international at Real Madrid, is the highest-ranked player to miss the top 10, one place ahead of Barcelona teenager Pau Cubarsi in 12th. Declan Rice, the midfielder who drove Arsenal to the Premier League title, finished only 15th, while his team-mates Gabriel Magalhaes (21st) and William Saliba (joint 29th) were also placed in the bottom half of the shortlist.
The full rankings from 11th to 30th
According to the confirmed list reported live by USA Today, the men's rankings run as follows: 11. Jude Bellingham, 12. Pau Cubarsi, 13. Achraf Hakimi, 14. Vitinha, 15. Declan Rice, 16. Ferran Torres, 17. Vinicius Junior, 18. Marc Cucurella, 19. Joao Neves, 20. Willian Pacho, 21. Gabriel Magalhaes, 22. Lautaro Martinez, 23. Nuno Mendes, 24. Luis Diaz, 25. Marquinhos, 26. Dayot Upamecano, 27. Bruno Fernandes, 28. Julian Quinones, and joint 29. Sadio Mane and William Saliba.
There are stories in every line of that list. Hakimi, at 13th, is the highest-ranked African player outside the top 10 after another Champions League-winning season with Paris Saint-Germain, while Mane's joint-29th place still keeps the Senegal forward on the list at the tail end of a glittering career. Bruno Fernandes, Manchester United's captain, sits 27th — a ranking that underlines how far United's season dragged their best player down the voting. Vinicius Junior, a podium contender two years ago, has slipped to 17th.
Who is left in the top 10?
The 10 players still in contention tonight are Ousmane Dembele, Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Michael Olise, Rodri, Fabian Ruiz and Lamine Yamal, with their exact order to be announced during the ceremony. It sets up the finish most people predicted when we published our preview of tonight's showdown: Kane, Mbappe and Yamal start as the three leading contenders, the same three names the award's own website accidentally published as winner earlier today, as we reported in the leak story.
Kane is the bookmakers' favourite after a season in which, as USA Today notes, he scored 73 goals in 65 matches across the eligibility period, which ran from 3 August 2025 to the World Cup final on 19 July 2026. A Kane win would make him the first English winner since Michael Owen in 2001. Yamal, at 19, would become the youngest winner in the award's 70-year history, beating the record Ronaldo Nazario set at 21 in 1997. On the women's side, the rankings from 11th to 30th were also confirmed, with Zambia's Barbra Banda finishing 18th and Japan's Yui Hasegawa 11th.
So what does it mean?
The order below the top 10 matters because it exposes how the 100 voting journalists actually weighed the season. Defenders and deep midfielders were squeezed again: Rice, the best player in a title-winning Arsenal side, could not break the top 14, and no defender finished higher than Cubarsi in 12th. Winning the World Cup with Spain has not rescued Cucurella (18th) or the Arsenal pair either. The message from the voters is familiar and unforgiving — goals and the biggest attacking moments still decide this award, and everyone else is ranked as supporting cast, however decisive they were.
Beyond the Final Whistle: Bellingham in 11th is the line that sums up this year's vote — close enough to the top 10 to hurt, far enough away to be forgotten by tonight. Our verdict: the real argument is not who finished 11th to 30th, it is whether the voters reward Kane's season-long scoring or Yamal and Mbappe's World Cup summer, and the low finishes for Rice and Hakimi show once again that this prize belongs to the forwards. The envelope in London will settle it within hours. Do YOU agree with Bellingham missing the top 10 — and who should take the trophy home tonight? Tell us in the comments.
