The debate over who wears football’s crown in a World Cup year usually starts with the champions. Spain’s triumph in North America has pushed their stars straight into the spotlight, and the names are obvious: Rodri, already a Ballon d’Or winner in 2024, and his new Barcelona teammate Lamine Yamal, the teenager who seems to treat pressure as a plaything.
They are not alone in the queue.
Harry Kane, after a staggering 61-goal haul for Bundesliga champions Bayern last season, has planted himself firmly in the conversation. He dominated domestically, he scored at a historic rate, he led from the front. But he walked away from the Champions League empty-handed in 2026, and that matters in an era where the game’s biggest individual prize is often decided in May and June, not over the grind of a league season.
At the other end of Europe, Paris Saint-Germain did not blink. They went back-to-back in the Champions League, a statement of power that keeps the Parc des Princes at the centre of the Ballon d’Or storm. Ousmane Dembele, reborn and ruthless, has the platform to chase a second Golden Ball. So do several of his teammates, each of them operating in a side built to dominate the defining nights of the calendar.
Yet when former France defender Bacary Sagna looks at the landscape, his gaze settles elsewhere.
“For me, Kvara deserves the Ballon d'Or,” he told GOAL, speaking in association with BetVictor Online Casino. No hesitation. No softening. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, the Georgian winger whose rise has been one of the stories of the European game, is Sagna’s pick.
Sagna’s reasoning cuts straight to the heart of the award. Strikers, he points out, live in the glow of goals. They collect numbers, they dominate highlights, they naturally draw the eye of voters. Kvaratskhelia, though, has done something different. From the flank, he has bent games to his will, carried a campaign on his shoulders and, in Sagna’s view, been “phenomenal” across a season where his impact went beyond the scoreboard.
“Apart from winning the Champions League,” Sagna argued, “I think football players will agree that Kvara was the most important player last season.” It is a strong claim in an era stacked with superstars, but it underlines how many inside the game weigh influence over pure statistics.
That does not mean Sagna is dismissing Kylian Mbappe. Far from it. He places his compatriot firmly in the top bracket, talking of an “amazing year”, a forward whose World Cup exploits and explosive start to the current season simply confirm what everyone already knew: this is his natural level.
“He might be the top, the best player in the world,” Sagna admitted, before adding the key question that hangs over every Ballon d’Or ballot: how impactful were you for your team last season?
That is where the conversation around Mbappe becomes complicated.
The numbers at Real Madrid are absurd. Two La Liga Golden Boots. Ninety goals in 106 appearances. He has delivered exactly what a Galactico is supposed to deliver: star power, goals, constant threat. Yet the club itself has gone two seasons without a major trophy. For a player openly chasing greatness, that drought is more than an annoyance. It is a stain on the narrative he is trying to write.
Former France striker Louis Saha can feel the tension building. Speaking to GOAL, he framed Mbappe’s situation with a blunt clarity: the Champions League is the gateway to the Ballon d’Or, and Mbappe knows it.
He left Paris Saint-Germain just as they finally conquered Europe. He joined a Real Madrid side that, on paper, should live in the latter stages of the competition. They have not reached the finals. That contrast has created a strange, almost superstitious storyline around him.
Saha went as far as to say Mbappe “seems to be a black cat in a way” when it comes to Champions League glory, a player whose presence has not yet aligned with the club game’s biggest prize. It is a harsh image, but it captures the unease: how can someone so obviously elite still be waiting for the trophy that usually unlocks the Ballon d’Or?
The pressure, Saha insists, is real. Not just from outside, but on a “spiritual” level for Mbappe himself, who will be desperate to erase that label as quickly as possible. Because everything else is there. The ambition. The drive. The willingness to make every situation about him, to demand the ball, the responsibility, the stage.
Saha does not see that as selfishness. He sees it as a trait of the greats.
“Every situation needs to be about him and that's the proof of greats,” he said. When it works, the world applauds. When it doesn’t, the criticism feels inevitable. Saha pointed to Cristiano Ronaldo as the ultimate example: had Ronaldo not converted his avalanche of trophies into defining moments, he “would have been doomed a long time ago” in the court of public opinion.
That is the fine line Mbappe walks now. The talent is beyond doubt. The goals keep coming. The aura grows. Yet the game’s most coveted individual award continues to orbit others: World Cup winners like Rodri, rising geniuses like Lamine Yamal, relentless scorers like Kane, and game-changers like Kvaratskhelia.
Someone from that group will step forward and claim the Ballon d’Or. The question is whether Mbappe finally bends the season to his will, or whether another year slips by with his brilliance framed by a glaring, Champions League-shaped gap.
