The Rondo, Ballon d’Or edition: Rodri’s unlikely win, Vinicius Jr’s snub, Real Madrid boycott, and can a USMNT player contend?

TH: Who else was it going to be? There are loads of good young footballers out there. Lamine, though, is on another level. His impact for club and country has simply been immense. Young player of the tournament at Euro 2024, mainstay for Barca, and quite comfortably the best La Masia grad since a certain Argentine. For the sake of football, let’s hope he stays healthy.

TM: Absolutely. There might be those who suggest that Yamal wouldn’t have won the award on the strength of his Barcelona performances alone, and is only being recognized because of his Euros heroics, but those people would be mistaken. At just 16, Yamal was Barcelona’s best and most consistent player in 2023-24. That he then went to the Euros and was the most productive attacking player at the tournament just put an extra juicy cherry on top of his cake. No player – not even Lionel Messi – did what Yamal has done at his age. They might as well give him the Kopa Trophy now before he starts picking up Ballons d’Or on a regular basis.

JS: There was no other nominee that should have been considered. He is freakishly talented for someone his age. To win the Euros, be a starter at Barcelona and produce at a high level every wee? That’s beyond impressive, so he’s 100 percent deserving, and 100 percent the correct choice.

RT: Yes, yes and more yes. Not only is Yamal among the best young players in the world, but at this point, it’s worth calling him one of the best players in the world, period. He already has a European Championship on his resume and continues to cook for Barcelona. It won’t be long before he’s a candidate for the big award, will it?

TH: Let’s go with the guy who was an absolute lock when the award was called off altogether in 2020: Robert Lewandowski. The Polish striker won every single competition he entered with Bayern Munich, and thrived under Hansi Flick. It may have been a year ultimately defined by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Lewandowski was the best goalscorer in Europe that campaign – and more impactful than Messi and Ronaldo. It’s a real shame.

TM: If we’re going for a player who should have won but didn’t, then it’s obviously Lewandowski in 2020. Surely one day France Football will see fit to award the man his Golden Ball after they wrongly cancelled the prize due to the pandemic? In terms of players who lost out to an eventual winner, it’s probably Franck Ribery in 2013. Like Lewandowski, he led Bayern Munich to a treble, and though there were others in that team who deserved recognition, Ribery was almost unplayable on the left wing. Ronaldo won for scoring 55 goals in a trophy-less season – it feels like the Ballon d’Or has moved past that kind of winner nowadays.

JS: It has to be Lewandowski, no? His scoring tally was extraordinary, and he was absolutely crucial to Bayern Munich in their 2019-20 UCL title. The fact that he was never handed the award despite being miles ahead of every other footballer in the world that year is still highway robbery.

RT: #JusticeforLewa. It’s still ridiculous that Lewandowski wasn’t recognized. Yes, there have been other snubs before, with Ribery and Thierry Henry coming to mind, but no one else has watched a fairly won award get shelved for reasons out of his control. Ribery and Henry lost to excellent players, but Lewandowski lost to a technicality. Real observers know how good he was that year, but the history books should reflect that, too.

TH: What charm? This whole thing has always felt a bit silly, especially when players started openly making it their sole goal in life to end their career with one (looking at you, Kylian Mbappe.) This is a team sport, and although individual excellence has to be recognized, it’s sad that we’ve all decided that this Golden Ball means more than the storylines that develop over the course of this season.

TM: Absolutely not! Is the award losing its headline-grabbing status as Messi and Ronaldo move on? Probably, for a little while at least. But its charm? If anything there’s more intrigue around the award than has been for the best part of two decades. Suddenly the door has been opened for a number of players to get their hands on the Golden Ball, and each year the race feels more and more unpredictable. It remains the biggest individual award in the sport and something the majority of young players aspire to win – and while it’s not for everyone, there’s no doubt that its charm remains.

JS: Losing it? It lost it, years ago. There’s no hype or anticipation for it, as it’s become a popularity contest. Whichever player is the most popular and has the best agent will get their name leaked. It’s a nonsensical award voted upon by people who have stakes in the game beyond simply being a fans and enjoying it.

RT: If anything, quite the opposite. The Messi-Ronaldo dominance feels long gone and at the moment, there will be 10-15 players in any given season that will feel like realistic candidates to win it. That makes this process compelling, and it makes it more fun to debate. That’s what this is all about, right? Debate? This next year, in particular, will be another fun one, with no World Cup or major international competitions to shift the voting. This award was just handed out, but the race is already on.

TH: Sure. But it won’t be Christian Pulisic, and it won’t be next year. And that’s OK. Let’s see how someone such as Cavan Sullivan develops, and there will undoubtedly be more talents to come.

TM: Not the current bunch. Pulisic might be able to get himself on the nominees list next year if he carries on his fast start to the season, but American players need to be leading contributors for teams who are challenging to win the Champions League if they want to take home a Ballon d’Or. That’s not to say that can’t happen, and if Sullivan is as good as Manchester City seem to think he is, then he could be the first to break through the glass ceiling. But right now there’s no one in the senior set-up who is capable of reaching the sport’s pinnacle.

JS: Of course. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that virtually anybody from any nation can be a brilliant footballer at the highest level. Look at Khvicha Kvaratskhelia from Georgia, Samuel Eto’o from Cameroon, George Best from Northern Ireland, George Weah from Liberia and Gareth Bale from Wales. You don’t need to be from an elite footballing nation to land on top in your career. What differs for the U.S. from those above is with the sheer size of the country – with an immense population pool, there should be an expectation that the country will develop a player capable of achieving that level of success.

RT: Realistically, the only current USMNT star with a prayer is Pulisic – and in reality, it would be a major win for him to even be among the nominees. No American man has ever garnered votes for the award and, if Pulisic continues on as he’s started this season, he may be in that mix. But winning it? Overcoming the likes of Vinicius, Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe and Lamine Yamal over the next few years? That doesn’t seem realistic.