Why the Best Player in the World Might Not Win the Ballon d'Or

Harry Kane scored 73 goals in 65 games, a season beaten only by peak Messi this century. So why might the best player in the world not win the Ballon d'Or? The votes closed on 28 September… and then the odds flipped. We put Kane, Yamal, Haaland, Olise and Mbappé through the Ballon d'Or's own three criteria, dig into the campaigning, and give our verdict before the ceremony in London on 26 October. Who's your number one? Tell me in the comments. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open 0:59 The Rulebook 2:12 The Case for Kane 3:59 The Challengers 6:08 The Mbappé Problem 7:51 The Campaign 9:58 The Verdict SOURCES (full list with links in the pinned comment) France Football / Ballon d'Or organisers · TNT Sports · Bundesliga.com · Oddschecker · Racing Post · Sports Illustrated · Al Jazeera · Fox Sports · beIN Sports · Real Madrid · Goal · FourFourTwo (via Yahoo Sports) · Bulinews · French Football Weekly · Morocco World News · Flashscore · Wikipedia match records Article screenshots are shown for commentary and criticism, with the outlet named on screen. Odds quoted are as reported by the outlets on the dates shown and are not betting advice. IMAGE CREDITS — Wikimedia Commons (full titles & links in the comments) Werner100359 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Bryan Berlin (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Fanny Schertzer (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Rufus46 (CC BY-SA 3.0) · mR.Hom (CC BY 2.5) · Biser Todorov (CC BY 4.0) · Brasil Correio (Public domain) · Petar Milošević (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Richard Bartz, Munich aka Makro Freak (CC BY-SA 2.5) · Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga) (CC BY-SA 3.0) · No Swan So Fine (CC BY-SA 4.0) Music and sound effects: original, generated for this channel. #BallonDor #HarryKane #LamineYamal