For as much as I make fun of the Ballon d'Or process and how ridiculous the mushy, vague, contradictory criteria are, I think the voting journalists have probably gotten it right in each of the past three years. At least, they haven't gotten it wrong.
When I wrote up my theoretical ballots in each of the past three years, my three choices were Rodri, Ousmane Dembélé and Harry Kane -- the three eventual winners. Once you move beyond the top pick, though, things start to get really weird. Imagine watching the 2025-26 Premier League season and then finding out that Chelsea's Marc Cucurella got more Ballon d'Or votes than Arsenal's Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba -- combined.
Since the award tends to identify one of the best players on one of the best teams in the world, it does tend to identify a worthy winner. But it rarely identifies any other worthy winners.
Remember when Mohamed Salah led the Premier League in goals and assists two seasons ago for a dominant Liverpool team? He finished fourth, with a vote total closer to 30th than first.
Who, then, is the best player in the world right now? Or rather, who are the best players in the world right now?
In August, we launched the 10 Best List, a recurring look at who I'd estimate to be the -- you got it -- 10 best soccer players in the world. We're back, post-Harry Kane Ballon d'Or, to update the list.
As a reminder, I'm using this as my guidance: "If you added this player to an average round-of-16 Champions League team, how much more likely would the team be to win the tournament?" And if a player is injured or has been injured recently, I'm dropping him out of the top 10.
All right, let's get to the list.
10. Vitinha, midfielder, Paris Saint-Germain
Previous rank: Unranked
Because of the injury rule I made up, we've had to drop Dembélé (No. 1) and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (No. 3) from the list. The former hasn't played since before Halloween, while the latter is out for the season with a torn ACL. And yet it seems like PSG remain the best soccer team in the world without either of them.
Last year, Arsenal finished the league phase of the UEFA Champions League with 23 goals, more than anyone else. PSG currently have 20 goals -- through four Champions League games, two of which were against Manchester City and Barcelona.
So, they have to have someone on the list. I don't think Vitinha would be a controversial pick here for pretty much anyone other than a guy who published a book that devotes an entire chapter to the issues with evaluating, measuring and valuing midfield play. But that guy also happens to be writing this article.
There are two ways to really impact the game as a midfielder: contribute goals and assists while also doing the normal, expected amount of midfielder stuff ... or do an incredible, outlier amount of the midfielder stuff. Vitinha has taken 2,259 touches over the past two Champions League seasons, while no other player has even reached 1,700. And he combines the massive volume with impressive execution; per Gradient Sports, he was the highest-graded passer among all players who at least reached the quarterfinals.
Put more simply: Almost every PSG possession involves Vitinha, and PSG have won back-to-back Champions League titles. He's clearly doing something right.
9. Pedri, midfielder, Barcelona
Previous rank: Unranked
PSG are tricky to analyze because their best players barely play any games, while Barcelona are tricky to analyze because they play such an outlier style from every other team. They've scored 17 more goals than every other team across the Big Five leagues, but they've also allowed more goals than 30 other teams across the Big Five leagues.
In other words, they're clearly sacrificing defensive solidity to boost their attack, so their attackers presumably all benefit from that decision.
At the same time, Barcelona's defensive personnel is just not anywhere near the same level as the other best teams in the world, even though Barcelona are one of the best teams in the world. So yeah, maybe their attackers are so good that they make up the gap.
Anyway, Pedri is Gradient's third-highest-graded passer across the Big Five leagues so far this season, because he can do it all:
Some of Barcelona's defensive frailty stems from the 5-foot-9 dude standing in their midfield, but there's not a midfielder more dangerous than Pedri when the ball is at his feet.
8. Erling Haaland, forward, Manchester City
Previous rank: 6
In case you were wondering: Yes, it was possible for Haaland to be even less involved in Manchester City's buildup play than he already was.
His expected goals, his goals and his shots are all pretty much where they always are: top of the Premier League. And although he doesn't have an assist, his expected-assists numbers are right where they've always been.
Haaland has never really added much on-ball value outside of the penalty area, but this season he's actually slightly negative for the amount of expected possession value he has created. (Possession value sums up every on-ball action a player makes by how much they increase or decrease their team's chances of scoring.) His touches in the attacking third and in the opposition penalty area are the lowest they've been at City. He's pressing less than ever before. And he's receiving fewer than 12 passes per game -- the fewest since he arrived in the Premier League.
7. Declan Rice, midfielder, Arsenal
Previous rank: 10
Per the player-rating model from the stats app Futi, Rice is only the fourth-highest-rated player in the league. But the players ahead of him are Rayan Cherki and Jérémy Doku, neither of whom are necessarily even first-choice starters at Manchester City, and his teammate Bukayo Saka, who is currently injured.
Rice's profile has changed this season, shifting him more toward the Vitinha end of the spectrum. As the deepest of Arsenal's three midfielders, he's touching the ball more than ever before -- 12 more touches per 90 minutes than his Arsenal average -- and his penalty-area touches have been cut in half. That has led to a decrease in goal-scoring threat but not a decline in creating chances from open play. Just ask Liverpool what happens when he does decide to get forward.
Rice has been the best all-around midfielder in the world for a couple of years now; the fact that Arsenal remain the best team in the Premier League with him playing a totally new role is further proof.
6. Kylian Mbappé, forward, Real Madrid
Previous rank: 7
Based on the numbers alone -- heck, even from watching the games and ignoring the numbers completely -- he probably should be first or second.
Through 16 matches in Spain and Europe, Mbappé has generated 14.47 non-penalty xG. The bigger the circle, the higher the xG value of the shot:
The gap between Mbappé in first is the same size as the gap between the guy in second and the guy in ninth. And it's not as if Mbappé is only scoring goals: While he accounts for the same percentage of Madrid's overall xG as Haaland does for Manchester City, Mbappé is Gradient's highest-graded LaLiga forward for on-ball attacking (essentially, your ball-carrying skill), and he's in the top 25 across the Big Five leagues and Champions League for expected assists.
The two reasons he's not higher are interrelated: (1) he might be the worst pressing forward in Europe, and (2) the best team in the world became the best team in the world as soon as he left.
5. Harry Kane, forward, Bayern Munich
Previous rank: 4
Is he taking on even more responsibility as he gets older?
Like the rest of his Bayern teammates, Kane is in the middle of a finishing slump. He's one of the all-time great strikers of the ball and xG overperformers, so we should expect an avalanche of goals to arrive soon.
Kane, though, is contributing more in buildup play than ever before. His rate of expected possession value added per 90 minutes is up to 0.16 this season after sitting below 0.08 over the past two seasons. He's also completing an extra pass into the penalty area per 90 minutes, without losing any of his shot production in front of goal.
Put another way: The reigning Ballon d'Or winner is still a really good soccer player.
4. Raphinha, winger, Barcelona
Previous rank: Unranked
We've now seen Raphinha be arguably the best player in the world at multiple positions: first as a winger two seasons ago and now as ... a center forward? We'd never seen him play this position consistently before, and who cares: His 16 non-penalty goals lead all players across the Big Five leagues and the Champions League. He's averaging a truly freakish 0.98 expected goals per 90 minutes.
If he keeps this up, he's going to win the Ballon d'Or. I'm just not sure he will, so I've split the difference and slotted him fourth. He's less involved defensively than ever before, he doesn't aid buildup play much at all anymore, and he's doing all of this despite touching the ball in the box less often than he has in his Barca career. So, he has lost some of the tertiary value he has provided in the past, and there are reasons to expect the goal scoring to stop being so efficient, too.
But I wouldn't say it's impossible, either. Almost every year at Barcelona, he has shown us he's capable of something new -- and better than what came before.
3. Michael Olise, attacking midfielder, Bayern Munich
Previous rank: 5
Creative passing might be the most important skill in the sport, and Olise and Barcelona's Lamine Yamal are clearly the two best creative passers in the world. Olise leads all players with 68 passes completed into the penalty area so far this season, while Yamal is tied for second with 58.
Change that to expected assists, and it's Yamal first (6.9) and Olise second (6.2). Same goes for expected possession value added: Yamal is at 6.4, Olise is at 5.9.
Olise was Gradient's highest-graded passer at the World Cup. He has also played about 300 fewer minutes than Yamal so far this season. You could easily make the case that Olise is the best player at the most important aspect of the modern game. And yet, he's only No. 3 ...
2. Jude Bellingham, midfielder, Real Madrid
Previous rank: 2
We have completed the journey across the midfield spectrum. Here is where Bellingham ranks among all players across the Big Five leagues and the Champions League for a number of key stats:
- Non-penalty expected goals: 29th
- Shots: 22nd
- Expected possession value added: 11th
- Passes into the box: 15th
- Touches inside the box: 11th
- Take-ons: 5th
- Fouls suffered: 1st
- High pressures applied: 2nd
Those numbers would be really good for a center forward -- for the focal-point attacker on a top team. That's basically what Roberto Firmino did for Liverpool for half a decade. But Bellingham is playing behind three other attackers for Madrid, and while he's touching the ball way less often than Rice or Vitinha, he has still taken the 44th-most touches of any player and the second most of anyone on Real Madrid.
The promise of Bellingham when he left Borussia Dortmund was that he could produce like a great attacker while still getting on the ball a bunch in the midfield. We saw it three seasons ago, and we're seeing it again right now.
1. Lamine Yamal, winger, Barcelona
Previous rank: 1
There was one final step left for Yamal to leave no doubt over who was the best player in the world. While he was breaking down defenses for fun, slaloming through slide tackles and creating chances from angles no one else even knew existed, he still didn't really know how to shoot.
He took a lot of shots, but most of them were low-quality attempts from tight angles. For someone of his dribbling skill and passing vision, he settled for too many bad shots from the right side of the box:
Well, I hope everyone else had fun while that was happening, because it's not anymore:
By xG, Yamal had attempted well-below-average shots over his first four seasons as a pro. This year, he has added an extra shot per game and the quality of his shots is now slightly above average. You're not supposed to get more efficient as you increase your volume, but, well, you're also not supposed to be the best soccer player in the world when you're 19 years old.
Yamal is -- and unless he gets hurt, no one else is taking his spot anytime soon.