The Ballon d’Or goes to France in 2025: Ousmane Dembelé, who won the Champions League with Paris St. Germain, among other things, has won the prestigious award.
Home game for Ousmane Dembelé. At the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, where the Ballon d’Or award ceremony takes place every year, the 28-year-old was the favorite to win the golden trophy. With his club Paris Saint-Germain, Dembelé won everything there was to win last season—except for the new Club World Cup in the US, where PSG lost to Chelsea FC in the final. PSG won the Ligue 1 title with a commanding 19-point lead, the French Super Cup and the French Cup, and won the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history – the 5-0 victory over Inter Milan was the highest final victory in history.
Dembelé may have failed to score in the final in Munich, but the French international and former Dortmund player scored enough goals anyway, with the two-footed striker finding the net 35 times in a total of 53 games in 2024/25.
Only three PSG pros at the ceremony
After this fabulous season, it was not only Dembelé who was nominated for the Ballon d’Or, of course; eight of the 30 players listed are currently in the PSG squad. Five of the eight pros made it into the top 10.
However, only Dembelé, Joao Neves, and Desiré Doué attended Monday evening’s ceremony, as Nuno Mendes, Achraf Hakimi, Vitinha, Fabian, and Kvicha Kvaratskhelia were on the pitch at the same time. The “Classique” between Olympique Marseille and PSG, scheduled for Sunday evening, had been postponed to Monday evening due to bad weather – and the favorites stumbled surprisingly. However, as Dembelé, Joao Neves, and Doué are currently injured, they were able to attend the ceremony.
Dembelé, who won the Ballon d’Or for the first time in his career and was frenetically celebrated in the hall, is Rodri’s successor. The Spaniard, who missed almost the entire last season due to a cruciate ligament rupture, had prevailed over Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior last year. This time, the Brazilian only came in 16th. Dembelé’s closest competitor for the Ballon d’Or was Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, who also had a fantastic season but missed out on the Champions League final with the Catalans. In terms of statistics, the 18-year-old, who would have become the youngest winner in history, was also unable to quite keep up with Dembelé (18 goals in 55 games).
