Barcelona have three players on the 30-man shortlist for the 2026 Ballon d’Or — Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi and Rodri — after France Football published the full list of nominees on Tuesday evening. The Barcelona Ballon d’Or nominees for 2026 arrive with one of their own among the favourites for the first time since Lionel Messi’s sixth win in 2019.
The bigger talking point in Catalonia, though, is who is missing. Pedri, Raphinha and Dani Olmo all failed to make the cut, and so did Fermin Lopez.
Lamine Yamal, third nomination at 19
Lamine is the Blaugrana name that matters most here. This is his third nomination and he is still only 19, having finished runner-up last year behind former Barca winger Ousmane Dembele — who is nominated again this time.
The case is straightforward. He ended 2025-26 with 24 goals and 18 assists in 45 games as Barcelona won La Liga and the Spanish Super Cup, then won the World Cup with Spain in the summer. Mundo Deportivo report that a Barca player looks like one of the genuine favourites for the award for the first time in seven years.
He was asked about it directly at Tuesday’s press conference and refused to campaign. “I don’t think I need to campaign to win the Ballon d’Or. I don’t have to convince you of anything,” he said, per Barca Blaugranes. “I’ve done a very good job this year, and I don’t have to beg you to vote for me. I don’t think it depends on me, but on the journalists. Although I think I have a chance.”
Cubarsi and Rodri complete the Barca three
Cubarsi, also 19, is on the senior list having already been shortlisted for the Kopa Trophy alongside Lamine earlier the same day. He took on the role of Barcelona’s defensive leader last season as a teenager, then went through the World Cup with Spain conceding only one goal across the tournament. Hours before the 30-man list landed he was named Barcelona’s best player of 2025-26 by the Aldo Rovira jury.
Rodri is the outlier — a Barcelona player nominated largely for what he did in a Spain shirt. He won the Golden Ball at the 2026 World Cup, for his football and for his captaincy, and only joined the Blaugrana afterwards. He already has one of these, from 2024, and is a serious contender to make it two.
Messi is nominated too, after leading Inter Miami to silverware and a strong World Cup with Argentina. The eight-time winner remains the last man to bring the award to Barcelona.
Pedri, Raphinha, Olmo and Fermin miss out
The omissions sting more than the nominations flatter. Raphinha, Barcelona’s captain, finished fifth in last season’s voting and does not make the top 30 at all this time, an injury-hit campaign with club and country having taken its toll.
Pedri came within one place of the top 10 last year, finishing eleventh, and is also absent. So is Olmo. And Fermin, whose productivity and trophy haul made him one of the more talked-about players in Europe over the summer — and who has just been valued at at least €150m — was overlooked as well.
That is four players from a squad that won a domestic double left off a 30-man list. It says something about how the award still weights individual highlight reels and international tournaments over collective seasons.
How the vote works and when we find out
The winner is chosen by 100 journalists, one from each of the 100 highest-ranked nations in the FIFA rankings. The ceremony takes place on Monday 26 October at 21:00 CEST, and for the 70th edition France Football has moved it out of France to London — a nod to Sir Stanley Matthews, the first winner back in 1956.
Barcelona have plenty else on that list. Joan Garcia is shortlisted for Goalkeeper of the Year, Cubarsi and Lamine are up for the Kopa Trophy, and the women’s categories are dominated by Barca players and by Pere Romeu.
None of it changes the immediate job. Hansi Flick’s side host Feyenoord at the Spotify Camp Nou on Wednesday in their Champions League opener, and Lamine — now the fifth of Barcelona’s captains at 19 — was clear about which trophy is actually missing. “There is no greater motivation than the fact that the Champions League is still to be won,” he said. Our predicted line-up and team news has the likely XI.
Nomination and ceremony details are reported by Mundo Deportivo, whose Spanish-language reporting is translated here, and by Barca Universal. The shortlist was published by the Ballon d’Or. Quotes are from Lamine Yamal’s pre-match press conference as reported by Barca Blaugranes.
