The 2025 Ballon d’Or is in the books with Ousmane Dembélé capturing the prize for the first time, becoming just the sixth French player to win the award.
Dembele was the tip of the Paris Saint-Germain spear that blitzed through French and European competitions including the club’s first-ever Champions League trophy. In other categories, Lamine Yamal became the first player to win two Kopa Trophies doing so in consecutive fashion, Gianluigi Donnarumma was recognized as the best goalkeeper and Viktor Gyökeres was named the best striker.
On the women’s side, Aitana Bonmatí captured a historic third-straight Ballon d’Or Féminin matching Lionel Messi as the only other player to win the Ballon d’Or three times in a row. Elsewhere, first-time winners were crowned for the Kopa, Yashin, and Gerd Müller awards in the women’s game as Vicky López, Hannah Hampton and Ewa Pajor were all recognized.
Looking at both the 2024 and 2025 shortlists, there was some major movement for numerous players. Let’s take a look at the biggest risers and fallers for the men’s 2025 Ballon d’Or.
Biggest Risers
Dembélé obviously catches the eye going from unranked completely to winning the award, but Vitinha and Cole Palmer stand out as players who were ranked in 2024 to receive big increases year-over-year, jumping 24 and 17 places respectively.
The eventual winner had never been shortlisted for the biggest individual prize in the sport until this year.
For those also not ranked last year compared to the 2025 ceremony, three stars found themselves in the top 10: Mohamed Salah, Raphinha and Achraf Hakimi—while Pedri slotted in at 11th.
Salah and Raphinha specifically were considered favorites for the award at multiple points last season, though as PSG kicked into gear Dembélé started to pull away.
Biggest Fallers
Caveats surround both Rodri and Dani Carvajal falling off the 2025 shortlist completely given they spent most of the 2024–25 season recovering from injury. Rodri, notably, was on crutches when he accepted his 2024 award.
Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior and Jude Bellingham, plus Manchester City striker Erling Haaland suffered massive drops. Lautaro Martínez fell outside of the top 10 going from seventh to 20th, while Florian Wirtz in his final season at Leverkusen dropped from 12th to just making the top 30 and Foden fell off the shortlist completely.
Other active names to fall off the shortlist include Dani Olmo, Ademola Lookman, Martin Ødegaard, Federico Valverde, William Saliba, Antonio Rüdiger and Nico Williams.
Which players could make even bigger jumps next year? Check out the 10 favorites to win the 2026 award.
READ THE LATEST SOCCER NEWS, TRANSFER RUMORS AND MATCH REACTION
This article was originally published on www.si.com as 2025 Ballon d’Or Rankings: Biggest Risers and Fallers Year on Year.