Who became the owner of the Golden Ball? Photo gallery

Stanley Matthews is the first winner of the Golden Ball. He is considered one of the greatest English footballers. He is known for his gentlemanly behavior. He played over 700 games and received no removals.

Among the contenders for the first Golden Ball was Lev Yashin.

Alfredo Di Stefano is one of the greatest footballers of all time, a legend of Real Madrid. Di Stefano in different years played for three national teams – Argentina, Colombia and Spain.

Among the contenders for the Golden Ball were legendary Soviet footballers Eduard Streltsov and Igor Netto.

Raymond Copa is a French footballer. His name is the prize for the best young player of the year, which is awarded as part of the Golden Ball ceremony.

In 1959, Alfredo Di Stefano became the first two-time winner of the Ballon d'Or.

Luis Suarez Miramontes is a Spanish footballer and football coach who is among the top 100 greatest players of all time in numerous versions.

He was the first Spanish player to play for an Italian club.

Omar Sivori is the second Argentine to win the Ballon d'Or. Like Di Stefano, after leaving for Europe, he changed the national team - instead of Argentina, he began to play for Italy.

Josef Masopust is the first representative of Eastern Europe among the winners of the Golden Ball.

Lev Yashin is still the only winner of the Golden Ball among goalkeepers. Until 1963, he was nominated three times. In total, he entered the short list of candidates for the Golden Ball six times.

Dennis Law is the only Scot among the winners of the Golden Ball. He died in January 2025.

In addition to Yashin from Soviet football players, Valery Voronin entered the short list of applicants.

Eusebio is the first Portuguese and footballer of African descent among the winners of the Golden Ball.

Torpedoist Valery Voronin for the second time in a row was among the contenders.

Bobby Charlton won the Ballon d'Or after England's only World Cup win (1966). And in the next two years, he was one step away from the Golden Ball, taking second places.

In 1966, Yashin was one of the last contenders for the prize.

Florian Albert is the only Hungarian footballer awarded the Ballon d’Or.

Among the nominees was the legend of the Moscow “Dynamo” Igor Chilenko.

George Best is the only representative of Northern Ireland among the winners of the Golden Ball.

Gianni Rivera is the first native of Italy among the winners of the Golden Ball. Five Italians were awarded the award.

Gerd Müller, one of the greatest scorers of all time, became the first German prize winner. In total, German footballers have seven Golden Balls.

Among the contenders was the Soviet footballer CSKA Albert Shesternev.

The first "Golden Ball" Dutch Johan Cruyff won in 1971.

For many years, the confrontation between Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer was central to football. It is no coincidence that Beckenbauer received the Golden Ball the following year.

In three years, Cruyff won two Ballon d'Or.

Oleg Blokhin won the Golden Ball second in the USSR.

Beckenabuer is the only player of the defensive plan two-time winner of the Golden Ball.

Allan Simonsen is the only Dane among the Golden Ball winners.

Englishman Kevin Keegan during his performance for the German Hamburg twice in a row became the owner of the Golden Ball. Keegan is the only Englishman to win the Ballon d'Or twice.

Following Keegan twice in a row, the Golden Ball was taken by a player of another German club - Bayern. Of the Germans, only Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Beckenabuer managed to win the Ballon d'Or twice.

Paolo Rossi in 1982 became the top scorer of the triumphal for his Italian team World Cup, after which he was recognized as the best player of the year.

He is still the record holder of the Italian national team for the number of goals at the world championships - nine.

In 1982-1983, the Soviet goalkeeper Rinat Dasaev also entered the short list.

Frenchman Michel Platini was the first in history to receive the Golden Ball three times in a row.

In 1985, the shortlist included Soviet football players Oleg Protasov and Rinat Dasaev.

Igor Belanov became the third and last Soviet football player among the winners of the Golden Ball.

Also among the contenders was Belanov’s teammate in Dynamo Kyiv Alexander Zavarov.

Rud Gullit is the second Dutch footballer to win the Ballon d'Or.

After Gullit twice "Golden ball" won his partner in the Netherlands and Italian "Milan" Marco van Basten.

In 1988, among the contenders for the prize were Alexei Mikhailichenko and Zavarov from Dynamo Kiev.

Lothar Mattheus is one of six footballers, along with Antonio Carbajal, Rafael Marquez, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Andres Guardado, who participated in five World Cups (1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998). He won the Ballon d'Or after becoming world champion as captain of Germany.

Jean-Pierre Papin for five consecutive years (1988-1992) was the top scorer of the French championship. In 1990 he won his only Ballon d’Or.

Van Basten won the Ballon d'Or for the third and last time, repeating Platini's record.

Roberto Baggio took the fourth place in the list of the best players of the XX century (after Maradona, Pele and Eusebio) according to the results of an Internet survey conducted by FIFA in 2000. In 2004 he entered the FIFA 100 list. Included in the list of the greatest football players of the XX century according to the magazine World Soccer.

Many of the zero players called Baggio their favorite footballer.

Hristo Stoichkov became the top scorer of the 1994 World Cup along with Oleg Salenko, and his Bulgaria team sensationally reached the semifinals. He is the only Bulgarian among the winners.

George Weah is the first African footballer and the only representative of Liberia to win the Ballon d'Or.

Matthias Zammer held an impressive European Championship in 1996, where his German team won.

Ronaldo won his first Ballon d’Or at 21. This happened a year after the transfer from the Dutch PSV to the Spanish “Barcelona”.

Zinedine Zidane after the triumph of the French national team at the 1998 World Cup was doomed to win the Golden Ball.

Rivaldo was an excellent replacement for Ronaldo, who left for Inter, and as a result, two years after his compatriot, he won the Ballon d’Or.

For the first time in history, for the second time in a row, the representative of Barcelona won the Ballon d’Or – this time the best player of the year was recognized by Portuguese Luis Figo.

Michael Owen was the leader of Liverpool, which won the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Super Cup of the country. As a result, the young forward received the Golden Ball.

In 2002, Ronaldo won his second and final Ballon d’Or. This happened after Brazil won the World Cup.

Pavel Nedved became the second and last Czech winner of the Golden Ball.

Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko is the only winner of the Golden Ball in the post-Soviet space.

Ronaldinho, despite his talent, only once took the Golden Ball.

Fabio Cannavaro was awarded the prize after, together with the Italian national team, he became world champion.

He is the last defender among the laureates. The decision to award the defender with the Ballon d'Or caused a wave of discontent.

Brazilian Kaka was the last to win the Ballon d'Or before a decade of domination by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or for the first time in 2008.

In the same year, for the first time in history, the top 6 contenders were Russian Andrei Arshavin, who with the Russian national team sensationally reached the semifinals of Euro 2008.

Also among the candidates was Yuri Zhirkov, who did not score a single vote.

In 2009, Messi won the Ballon d'Or for the first time. He is the only active Argentine player to win the Ballon d'Or. Sivori and Di Stefano won the Ballon d'Or when they refused to play for Argentina in favor of other national teams.

Messi was the first in history to receive the Golden Ball four times in a row. In 2012, he also broke Platini’s record for the most Ballon d’Or.

Ronaldo broke Messi’s hegemony in 2013 and became the best player twice in a row.

In 2015, Messi received his fifth Ballon d’Or after his last Champions League win with Barcelona.

In 2017, Ronaldo, after the first ever victory of Portugal at the Euro and the triumphant performance of Real Madrid in Europe, caught up with Messi in the number of Ballon d’Or – 5. But he never won a prize again.

The Portuguese’s partner in Real Madrid, Croatian Luka Modric, broke the hegemony of Ronaldo and Messi.

After Messi won the prize twice. The trophy was not awarded in 2020.

In 2022, Karim Benzema after a phenomenal season for Real Madrid received his only Golden Ball.

In 2023, after winning the World Cup, Messi received the Golden Ball for the last time.

Spaniard Rodri became the first since 2006 player of the defensive plan to win the Golden Ball.

France and PSG striker Ousmane Dembele won the Golden Ball for the first time in history, the best footballer of the year prize.