​Golden feats: On the Ballon d’Or

Choosing the best footballers on the planet is an unenviable task. Aside from the fact that elevating individual players to superstardom in a quintessential team sport is fraught with pitfalls, France Football, the French magazine which has long presented the Ballon d’Or, sets exacting standards. The criteria for the 100 journalists from the top 100 FIFA-ranked countries — 50 in case of women — to keep in mind while voting includes ‘individual and decisive performance, collective successes and team achievements, and fair play and public image’, an incredibly tough balance to achieve. In Paris on Monday night, this arduous exercise for the 2024-25 season culminated in Ousmane Dembele and Aitana Bonmati being adjudged the best men’s and women’s footballers, respectively. For the 28-year-old Dembele, the award represented a redemptive arc. After first breaking out at French club Rennes as a boy wonder and then exhilarating fans in Germany while playing for Borussia Dortmund, Dembele’s career stagnated following a big-money move to Barcelona in 2017. Joining in the immediate aftermath of Brazilian’s superstar Neymar’s exit from the Spanish giants, the Frenchman crumbled under pressure and gained the reputation of being wayward and lacking in discipline. But after moving to Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in 2023 and taking nearly a year to settle, Dembele has thrived.

Under Spanish coach Luis Enrique, Dembele scored a career-high 35 goals and assisted 16 across 53 appearances in all competitions in 2024-25. It helped that there were no international men’s competitions of repute and club form was all that mattered. And Dembele led PSG to a fantastic treble of Ligue 1, Coupe de France and a historic first UEFA Champions League title. At the start of the season, PSG lost one of its biggest stars Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid. Dembele was not part of Enrique’s initial solution and was even dropped for a match after reporting late for training. But once he was thrust into the leader’s role in December 2024, Dembele took off, adding ruthless efficiency to his incredible dribbling and running skills, and never looked back. Bonmati’s accolade, in contrast, is for sustained excellence. She collected her third successive best player award to join Lionel Messi and Michel Platini as the only three to have done so. She led Barcelona to a domestic treble, and her country Spain to the final of the European Championship this July barely weeks after recovering from viral meningitis. Spain lost the final to England on penalties and the 27-year-old missed a spot-kick, but her Player of the Tournament award then and the Ballon d’Or now are affirmations that she is the undisputed best.