With the Ballon d'Or shortlist to be announced tomorrow, Harry Kane heads the field as the bookmakers' favourite after a prolific season for club and country. History, however, suggests football's biggest individual prize is rarely decided on goals alone. Since the Ballon d'Or was first awarded in 1956, performances in the game's biggest competitions have consistently shaped the outcome.
World Cup years, in particular, have followed a remarkably clear pattern and recent editions have shown just how difficult it is to win the award without lifting a major global or continental tournament. Once the nominees are announced, an international jury of specialised journalists will cast their votes, with one representative per country from the men's top 100 having their say. So, can Kane, who has never finished higher than 10th in the battle to be the world's best player, become one of the rare exceptions?
This could be year I win Ballon d'Or, says Mbappe 73 goals from dropping deep - we ask Kane to break down how he did it Created by France Football journalist Gabriel Hanot, the Ballon d'Or was first presented in 1956, with England's Sir Stanley Matthews the inaugural winner. Originally voted for by journalists, the award was restricted to European players until eligibility was expanded to all nationalities in 1995. Raymond Kopa became the first Ballon d'Or winner in a World Cup year after helping France reach the 1958 semi-finals.
To mark the award's 60th anniversary in 2016, France Football revisited every pre-1995 edition, external. Its retrospective review concluded Pele would have claimed the award after inspiring Brazil to their first World Cup triumph at the age of 17. Four years later, Josef Masopust officially won the Ballon d'Or after captaining Czechoslovakia to the World Cup final.
Again, France Football judged Brazil's Garrincha to have been the standout performer after leading his country to successive World Cup titles. It reached the same verdict for Pele in 1970 after he inspired Brazil to a third World Cup crown. By then, a clear pattern had emerged.
Bobby Charlton (1966), Paolo Rossi (1982), Lothar Matthaus (1990), Zinedine Zidane (1998), Ronaldo (2002) and Fabio Cannavaro (2006) all won the Ballon d'Or after lifting the World Cup. Even among the official exceptions, players still tended to enjoy deep runs at the tournament. Johan Cruyff collected the Ballon d'Or after leading the Netherlands to the 1974 World Cup final, while Luka Modric repeated the feat with Croatia in 2018.
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