Copyright CBS Sports
A defender is not going to win the Ballon d'Or this time. Broadly speaking, that is probably the right thing. There is nothing more valuable and challenging in the sport than putting the ball in the net on a consistent basis. So long as Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland and Harry Kane continue to do that, they will be the frontrunners for a 2025-26 season that has an awful lot of football left to play. It is no reflection on our modern footballing culture, the brain melt of the Lionel Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo era, that defenders aren't winning the biggest prizes in football. That has always been true. There were a smattering of names in contention in the years immediately after France Football first awarded the prize in 1956: the English center backs Billy Wright and Duncan Edwards the following year, Giacinto Facchetti when Inter retained the European Cup in 1965. Perhaps the greatest defender ever, Paolo Maldini, received slightly fewer points over his entire career than Zinedine Zidane got when he won the prize in 1998. There are only five broadly defensive players to have been dubbed the game's finest: goalkeeper Lev Yashin in 1963, Franz Beckenbauer in 1972 and 1976, Matthias Sammer in 1996 and Fabio Cannavaro a decade later. Given that the Germans on that list often operated as sweepers, we can quibble about Rodri but it wouldn't change the broader point. It takes something fairly extraordinary for a defender to win the greatest individual honor in football. Suppose that were beginning to happen this season, though. What would it look like? Well, for starters, the defense itself would have to be sensational. It is harder to capture defensive excellence in quite the same way it is at the other end. We have a good idea when Haaland is playing well, the ball keeps going into the net. A low tally in the goals conceded column is not necessarily as indicative of exceptional individual performances but perhaps if the team performance was truly remarkable, one would have to consider the individuals within that backline. Of course there are some pure defending numbers that might tell a story, such as when a center back has 13 shots blocked and his goalkeeper has 16 saves. That speaks to a defender who is doing the very final, very important bit of defending very well. There are other statistics in which defenders might shine. Are they helping their teammates to progress the ball, whether through their carrying or passing? Are they getting a volume of touches that suggests they are trusted to build play? Are they showing strength in the duels? It probably wouldn't hurt to bear in mind that Rodri had his best scoring season when he won the Ballon d'Or and that Sammer came up with some clutch goals at Euro 96. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get as near as realistically possible to whatever number Mbappe et al set as the high water mark of scoring. If we want to get really creative, perhaps we might argue that they encapsulate a new mode of football as Beckenbauer did with his ability to drive possession forward from the back. At what might be the birth of the set-piece age, would it not be the time to celebrate the sport's most dominant force at dead balls? You've probably worked out where I'm driving to here. I'd guess it was probably in the headline in the first place. Gabriel Magalhaes fulfils all those criteria above. He has been the best pure defender in an Arsenal backline that, even after its wobble against Sunderland, is trending towards being one of only three in Premier League history to concede fewer than 20 goals over the course of a season. A few years ago, Gabriel's defining qualities were mostly his defending but his ability to move the ball up the field from the left-hand side he marshals has developed rapidly. Then there is the set-piece revolution at whose vanguard stands the big Brazilian. Since he arrived in England in the summer of 2020, Gabriel has scored 18 Premier League goals from dead balls. His nearest rival is James Ward-Prowse on 14. In the last four and a bit seasons of European top-flight football, only Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski better the set piece output of the Arsenal center back. Already this season he has two goals and two assists to say nothing for the defenses who seem to fall apart when he attacks a corner. In a particularly limited set of circumstances he must be defended in much the same way as Haaland. If you don't limit the supply, you find yourself in the lap of the gods. Continue on this current trajectory and at the very least Gabriel will get a good number of votes. To muscle his way in among the winners, though, that requires excellence both from him and his teammates. The realistic path to him beating multiple players with a lot of goals probably has to include Arsenal not just winning the Premier League but the Champions League too. In at least one of those it would have to be incredibly apparent that this win came on a bedrock of clean sheets and it probably wouldn't hurt to weigh in with a few more of those goals in the biggest games. Think Rodri's goal against West Ham in May 2024 to wrestle the Premier League in Manchester City's direction. Given that it's a World Cup year, something similar will probably need to happen with Brazil, too, a grit and grind run to the final a la Cannavaro's Italy. This column has and will continue to insist that Ballon d'Or votes have generally cleaved too far towards picking the guy with the most medals rather than the outstanding footballer of the year but in these circumstances, you'd have to bear in mind that the second of the prize's three criteria is "team performances and achievements". And of course, in those circumstances, Gabriel's winning of the game's biggest prizes would have kept them out of the mitts of Mbappe, Haaland and Kane. What value all those goals if, at best, they deliver a domestic title? So perhaps that intro wasn't entirely accurate. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that a defender might win the Ballon d'Or this year. All they need to do is be the best player on teams that win their domestic league, the Champions League and then the World Cup. Chuck a disproportionate number of big goals in there too and whadyya know, there's something shiny and spherical waiting for you in September. Ballon d'Or power rankings A quick reminder before we dive into this list: minutes matter. How can you be the best performing footballer in the world if you aren't on the pitch for much of the season? And so when big names like Raphinha and Ousmane Dembele take a tumble, it is often because of that. These may be less pivotal games than those that come in the spring and summer but they'll still count.
