The annual Ballon d’Or build-up provides football fans with growing excitement for the eventual announcement of the world’s greatest football player from the previous season.
The 2025 award presents exceptional intrigue and anticipation, as the field is wide open compared to previous seasons where the likely winner provided relatively little debate. Instead, this year’s top players all have both strong credentials and significant flaws, leading to plenty of uncertainty.
Before the award ceremony comes the release of the nominees, as France Football, with help from L’Equipe, finalizes the 30-player shortlist from which the eventual winner will be selected. While many of those players have little hope of winning the actual award, being nominated is a coveted honor in and of itself.
As such, those left out in the cold will be sorely disappointed not to make the cut, with plenty of world-class individuals not amongst the nominees.
The Sporting News details the biggest snubs, top stars on the outside, and those who were surprising to see included on the list.
MORE: A full look at the 30 players nominated for the 2025 Ballon d’Or
Top snubs from 2025 Ballon d’Or nominees
While 30 world-class players were named by France Football to this year’s Ballon d’Or shortlist, a number of other players will be bitterly disappointed not to make the cut. Here are the few players who will leave fans most surprised not to be included on the list.
Julian Alvarez
Nobody can be more outraged for being left off the 2025 Ballon d’Or shortlist than Julian Alvarez, who comes off a sensational first season with Atletico Madrid and has nothing to show for it. The Argentine scored 29 goals across all competitions, including seven goals in 10 Champions League matches.
Alvarez was a warrior, playing nearly 4,000 minutes across the season for his club while also starting every single qualification match for Argentina across the season, scoring four goals and assisting two more. This was an egregious mistake by the Ballon d’Or selection committee.
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Alessandro Bastoni
The Ballon d’Or selection committee completely punted on defenders this year, and it’s a total complete shame. They nominated just one central defender amongst the 30 players, with Liverpool star Virgil van Dijk the only one.
That’s a huge blow to Inter star Alessandro Bastoni, who was arguably the club’s best player in a season where they reached the Champions League final and finished a point shy of a league title. Statistically, Bastoni was incredible for Inter, especially in possession as he ranked amongst the top at his position carrying the ball forward and creating chances for his teammates.
In a down season for top central defenders, Bastoni was a star and will be no doubt aggrieved to be outside the list.
Alexander Isak
Alexander Isak may be pushing for a move away from Newcastle that could reach the €100 million mark, but apparently, that’s not good enough for the Ballon d’Or committee.
Isak was electric in the Premier League, tallying 23 goals in 34 league matches while adding six more assists. He helped Newcastle to a Champions League qualifying position, and now looks to secure a big move away. No, he didn’t play in Europe last season, but he surely did enough in the Premier League to warrant such inclusion.
If it’s any indication of what Isak meant to his club last season, Newcastle scored one goal in the four matches Isak missed last year, shut out in three of them. He should have been on this list.
MORE: Why this year’s Ballon d’Or is unlike any in recent memory
Jamal Musiala
As if the brutal injury he suffered during the Club World Cup wasn’t bad enough, young German superstar Jamal Musiala was left off the 2025 Ballon d’Or shortlist, a questionable decision for sure.
Musiala tallied 21 goals and eight assists across all competitions for Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich, helping the club to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Musiala suffered a muscle injury late in the season, and his absence from the European meeting with Inter was surely decisive in dooming Bayern to an exit, showing that even one of the world’s most potent attacking units is nothing without their brightest star.
The same goes for Germany, where Musiala was instrumental in their Nations League quarterfinal win over Italy, but when missing from their summer matches against Portugal and France, the DFB attack fell apart. He will be devastated not to be included.
Mateo Retegui
Confusingly, the Ballon d’Or selection committee included the Serie A Player of the Season on the shortlist (Scott McTominay) but not the league’s top goal scorer Mateo Retegui.
The Atalanta striker bagged 25 goals and assisted eight more in league play, while adding another three goals in the Champions League. It was a sensational season for the 26-year-old who scored six more goals than anyone else, and more than double the total of nominated Lautaro Martinez.
Gabriel
As mentioned before, center-backs were snubbed left and right on this Ballon d’Or shortlist. Not only will Alessandro Bastoni be rueing his snub, but so will Arsenal star Gabriel, who not only was a defensive force all season long for the Gunners, but was also a threat in front of goal in one of the world’s best set-piece teams.
In truth, either Gabriel or his defensive partner, William Saliba, could have been nominated to this list, as Arsenal leaned on those two in a massive way last season as their attacking players succumbed to injuries left and right. Yet it’s Gabriel’s scoring ability that puts him above the others and should have seen him onto this list.
MORE: The Sporting News backs Raphinha to win the 2025 Ballon d’Or
Biggest stars to be left off 2025 Ballon d’Or nominees
While some top stars from the 2024/25 season will be disappointed not to make the cut, a number of other global icons are also on the outside looking in. While not necessarily snubs, these are the most notable superstars not to be included on the list, albeit for more understandable reasons than those listed previously.
Rodri
While it’s the furthest thing from a snub, it is notable that last year’s Ballon d’Or winner Rodri isn’t amongst this year’s nominees. Of course, as many fans will be familiar with, there’s a good reason for that.
Rodri missed nearly the entire 2024/25 season thanks to a torn ACL, forcing him to accept his award last fall while on crutches. He is expected to be back in full force for the coming campaign, which will delight Man City fans who saw their side crumble in midfield without Rodri in the mix.
Bukayo Saka
Nearly included in the snubs list, Arsenal superstar Bukayo Saka was a bit of a surprise exclusion. Saka was leaned on heavily last season, as many of the Gunners attackers around him dropped like flies, succumbing to injury.
Yet on the whole, there’s a pretty good reason for his absence from the 30-player nominee list. Saka was himself injured for a critical part of the season, missing from late December to mid-March with a serious hamstring problem. When he returned, he was a shell of himself, scoring just one goal in his final nine Premier League matches to see the Gunners fade in the title race.
Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo
Two of the most legendary Ballon d’Or winners in history remain on the outside looking in, as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are in the twilight of their careers.
Messi holds the most Ballon d’Or trophies ever with an astonishing eight. As the 38-year-old stars in MLS with Inter Miami, currently leading the league in goals, he continues to battle fitness issues while his body continues to age. It would require a Herculean effort even for Messi to find himself nominated for this award while playing in a league of such stature.
Ronaldo faces the same uphill battle, and even as he pours on the goals in the Saudi Pro League, his failure to win any trophies with Al Nasser left him without any chance of being a surprise inclusion.
Phil Foden
Few players took as big a step back this past season than Phil Foden, who went from a 19-goal scorer in the Premier League to a bit-part castaway at Man City. Foden went from playing nearly 2,900 league minutes to under 1,800, and that drop had little to do with injuries.
As big a reason for Man City’s decline last season, Foden’s absence from this list is more than justified, and he remains one of the biggest disappointments from the 2024/25 campaign.
Biggest surprises named to 2025 Ballon d’Or nominees
With snubs come surprises, and it’s impossible to argue a player was left out without having someone they should be included over. Thus, here are the players who it was most shocking to see on the list, and probably could have been left off in favor of those who were disappointed to miss out.
Desire Doue
Champions League title winners Paris Saint-Germain were handed an astonishing NINE nominations amongst the 30-player shortlist, accounting for nearly one-third of the inclusions. While we know the Champions League is where stars are born, and is weighted heaviest amongst the competitions when it comes to picking Ballon d’Or contenders, but this is just flat-out egregious.
The most indefensible selection on the list is forward Desire Doue. The France international is undoubtedly a world-class player and, at 20 years old has an incredibly bright future, but he simply did not have the body of work this season to be a Ballon d’Or nominee.
Doue scored just six goals and logged eight assists in 31 Ligue 1 matches this season, playing under 1,800 league minutes. He was a rotational player up front with Bradley Barcola and is clearly still developing into the superstar he promises to be. The only real reason Doue is on this list is for his brace in the Champions League final, which is a wonderful moment but shouldn’t come with a Ballon d’Or nomination all on its own.
Denzel Dumfries
Sure, Inter full-back Denzel Dumfries scored a bunch of goals for a defender, but come on, what are we doing here?
Dumfries has plenty to love about his game, as he is most often deployed as an attacking wing-back in the Inter 3-5-2 system. Yet he has enormous holes in his game, and should be nowhere near this list. He’s a defensive sieve, struggling mightily to tackle opposition wingers and providing almost no ball-winning whatsoever, while also not being effective at ball retention either. Dumfries won a woeful 32 percent of his take-ons, does not carry the ball forward, and is dispossessed constantly — what a basketball fan would call a “volume shooter.”
Leaving off star center-backs like Arsenal duo Gabriel and William Saliba, or even Dumfries’ own teammate Alessandro Bastoni, for an incomplete player like Dumfries is highly confusing.
Lautaro Martinez
It’s clear that Lautaro Martinez is a star player and one of the world’s best forwards, but he did not provide the necessary body of work for inclusion on this list.
Yes, Lautaro had a great Champions League campaign, scoring nine goals, but he was blanked in the heavy final defeat, and his league campaign was a disappointment by his standards. Martinez scored 12 goals across 31 Serie A matches, his lowest tally since his first season with Inter in 2018/19, a big reason why his side failed to retain the Scudetto. He also only scored three goals for Argentina in the year’s World Cup qualifying slate, missing the win over Brazil due to injury.
Amongst a list that clearly favored Champions League play over everything else to an egregious level, it’s understandable why Martinez was included on this list, but that doesn’t mean it was the right decision. His international teammate Julian Alvarez was far more deserving of this spot.
Fabian Ruiz
Another of PSG’s incredible nine nominations, Fabian Ruiz made up one-third of the world’s best midfield this past season, and there’s no doubt he has seen his stock skyrocket as a result. But to include Fabian Ruiz on the 30-player shortlist for the Ballon d’Or is a step too far.
While his two midfield teammates, Vitinha and Joao Neves, were stonewall inclusions, Ruiz is a distant third in terms of contributions. He was a critical part of the Champions League title run for sure, but so were Marquinhos and William Pacho, who didn’t make this list — that’s not the only qualification for inclusion.
