Like women's professional soccer as a whole, the Ballon d'Or Féminin came around after giving the men about a 60-year head start. Also like women's soccer, it has been dominated by Spain in the 2020s.
After Ada Hegerberg and Megan Rapinoe won the first two iterations of the award in 2018 and 2019, respectively, either Alexia Putellas (2021-22) or Aitana Bonmatí (2023-25) took home the last five awards. And even with Bonmatí missing six months with a broken leg and therefore failing to make this year's short list, Putellas appears to be the favorite to win this year's crown when it is awarded in late October.
But who deserves it the most? Based on what tends to matter in Ballon d'Or voting -- good statistics, popularity and major team success -- let's use the same process of elimination we employed on the men's side to wade through this year's Ballon d'Or Féminin nominees and figure out whether Putellas or any number of other nominees has the best case for 2026.
Eliminate anyone who didn't win a trophy
Eliminated: Barbra Banda (Orlando Pride/Zambia), Melvine Malard (Manchester United-Chelsea/France), Caroline Weir (Real Madrid-OL Lyonnes/Scotland), Tessa Wullaert (Inter Milan-Como/Belgium)
We can always debate the fairness of using team success to evaluate individuals, but that won't change the fact that the Ballon d'Or winner, male or female, usually lifted team trophies before lifting the Ballon d'Or. So even though Banda is one of the best scorers in the NWSL (and played well at this summer's Women's Africa Cup of Nations), Weir scored 30-plus goals in 2025-26, Malard helped Manchester United to a top-four WSL finish (and League Cup finals appearance) and Wullaert is a Belgian legend, none of them is winning the award this year.
That takes us down to 26 finalists.
If you won only one trophy, you had better be an attacker
Eliminated: Lorena (KC Current/Brazil), Manaka Matsukubo (NC Courage-Chelsea/Japan)
Lorena was named the NWSL's goalkeeper of the year in 2025 and helped the Current win the NWSL Shield, but we know that, fair or not, goalkeepers don't win Ballons d'Or. (For the most part, neither do NWSL players.)
For Matsukubo, however, things are a little tricky because she's sort of an attacker: Over the past year, she has split her minutes pretty evenly between center forward, attacking midfielder and central midfielder. But for as important as she may have been in helping Japan win the 2026 Asian Cup -- just about the only major international trophy awarded during this year's Ballon d'Or term -- her overall scoring stats (13 goals and five assists) aren't why she was nominated.
Now we're down to 24 players.
You have to be the best player on your club team (or have a case that you are)
Eliminated: Selma Bacha (OL Lyonnes/France), Esmee Brugts (Barcelona/Netherlands), Kerstin Casparij (Manchester City/Netherlands), Cata Coll (Barcelona/Spain), Alex Greenwood (Manchester City/England), Patri Guijarro (Barcelona/Spain), Mapi León (Barcelona-London City/Spain), Vivianne Miedema (Manchester City/Netherlands), Wendie Renard (OL Lyonnes/France), Momoko Tanikawa (Bayern Munich/Japan)
We can weed out quite a few players with this criterion because a handful of clubs had a lot of nominees. Even without Bonmatí making the list, eight finalists played for Barcelona's Champions League winning squad last season, while five helped Manchester City win the Women's Super League, three helped OL Lyonnes advance to the Champions League final and three dominated with Bayern.
Knowing what we know about voters preferring attackers, we can confidently eliminate Barcelona defenders like Brugts (left back), Coll (goalkeeper) and León (center back) despite their prowess, and though Guijarro is dynamite in midfield, she probably missed too much time with injury to earn serious consideration.
For Manchester City, Bunny Shaw and Yui Hasegawa are generally regarded as their best players, so we'll drop Casparij and Greenwood (despite their 16 combined assists) and the brilliant, but complementary, Miedema. Bacha (13 assists) and Renard (10 goals) are great -- Renard remains excellent at age 36 -- but are overshadowed by the brilliant Melchie Dumornay in Lyon, and while Tanikawa is one of the game's brightest up-and-comers at age 21, Pernille Harder and Klara Bühl remain Bayern's biggest names.
This big swoop takes us down to 14 finalists.
You should be among the top 20 players in the world
Eliminated: Klara Bühl (Bayern Munich/Germany), Scarlett Camberos (Club América/Mexico), Rose Lavelle (Gotham FC/USA), Pernille Harder (Bayern Munich/Denmark), Yui Hasegawa (Manchester City/Japan), Khadija Shaw (Manchester City/Jamaica)
The timing for this one is a little awkward, since our very own 2025 Women's Rank published last December, in the middle of this Ballon d'Or cycle, but it still likely hints at general conventional wisdom. And it probably hurts the cause for Camberos (unranked), Harder (No. 44 on our list), Lavelle (No. 32), Hasegawa (No. 27), Shaw (No. 26) and Bühl (No. 25), despite their 128 combined goals and 63 combined assists.
Of the players in this batch, eliminating Shaw feels the most tenuous. She has won three consecutive Golden Boots in the WSL, and she was the driving force behind Manchester City's first WSL title in 10 years. (She scored the opening goal in an FA Cup final blowout of Brighton, too.) She produced 36 goals and 10 assists for the season and also scored six goals in only three matches with Jamaica -- I'm betting she'll be in the top 20 in the next ESPN FC women's rankings -- but for now, we'll trust the criteria and assume she doesn't get enough votes.
Now we're down to eight.
When in doubt, eliminate anyone who didn't do as much internationally
Eliminated: Caroline Graham Hansen (Barcelona/Norway), Ewa Pajor (Barcelona/Poland)
Now we're really making some tough cuts.
As with Shaw, both Pajor (34 goals, eight assists and four trophies) and Graham Hansen (17 goals, 16 assists and a matching four trophies) check just about every box on the list. They're productive, they're well-known, and they've been elite for quite a while. Graham Hansen was the Liga F assists co-leader and produced two goals with four assists in the Champions League knockout rounds. Pajor, meanwhile, scored twice in the Champions League final -- two of her 11 Champions League goals.
They're both brilliant, they both have a solid case to win the award (especially Pajor), and they both might be held back by a lack of international success.
Graham Hansen scored twice in World Cup qualification, but Norway finished second in its group to Germany and will have to finish off Romania (they lead 2-0 after one leg) and beat Albania or Wales to qualify. (They'll probably do so.) Pajor, meanwhile, might be forever Robert Lewandowski'd and held back by Poland's lack of major success. She scored half of Poland's six World Cup qualification goals, but they finished last in their group and will have to come back against Belgium (they trail 1-0 after one leg) and either Ireland or Kazakhstan to advance to Brazil. (That route is quite a bit harder.)
Okay, the competition is stiff here ... maybe you need at least two trophies
Eliminated: Temwa Chawinga (KC Current/Malawi), Alessia Russo (Arsenal/England)
We have six players left, and they all have excellent cases. But while four of the six won multiple trophies, Chawinga won only the NWSL Shield (and not the playoff title), and Russo's Arsenal won the FIFA Champions Cup but finished second in the WSL and failed to defend their Champions League title while England couldn't avoid the playoff round in World Cup qualification. (They lead Greece after one leg and will have to top Slovakia or Ukraine to get there.)
Russo finished third in the voting last season and scored 29 goals with 10 assists this year. Chawinga was the NWSL's MVP and leading scorer and took Malawi to the Women's AFCON final (and qualified for the World Cup). Dynamite stuff. But trophies matter with this award, perhaps more than they should. And now we're down to four names.
Your finalists
Mariona Caldentey (Arsenal/Spain)
Relevant stats: 49 matches, seven goals, 10 assists, two trophies (UEFA Nations League, FIFA Champions Cup)
Melchie Dumornay (OL Lyonnes/Haiti)
Relevant stats: 36 matches, 21 goals, 12 assists, three trophies (Division 1 Féminine, Coupe de France Féminine, Coupe LFFP)
Clàudia Pina (Barcelona/Spain)
Relevant stats: 54 matches, 32 goals, nine assists, five trophies (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Nations League, Liga F, Copa de la Reina, Supercopa de España Femenina)
Alexia Putellas (Barcelona-London City/Spain)
Relevant stats: 53 matches, 26 goals, 15 assists, five trophies (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Nations League, Liga F, Copa de la Reina, Supercopa de España Femenina)
In the first five years of the 2020s, not only have Spanish players won the award each year, they also earned the top two spots in 2021, two of the top five in 2022, four of the top eight in 2023, two of the top three in 2024 and four of the top six last year. Barcelona, meanwhile, have dominated even more, with three of the top five in 2021, each of the top three (and six of the top 11) in 2024 and four of the top eight in 2025.
This is a long way of saying that despite perhaps eliminating Pajor a bit early, it makes sense that we're at the finish line with two Barcelona players (for 2025-26) and three Spanish players in the top four. Putellas is indeed the betting favorite to win, but all four have a case.
The case for Pina
Over the past two seasons, Pina has shifted from strong role player to absolute star at Barcelona. She won the Golden Boot in Liga F, scoring 21 goals (with five assists for good measure), and being the most prolific player in league play for the best team in the world kind of makes its own case. She scored in the Copa de la Reina final, as well, and for Spain she scored four times in last fall's Nations League victory and three times in World Cup qualification -- including the final goal in their qualification-clinching 4-0 blowout of Russo's England. (She also gave her 2027 Ballon d'Or candidacy a nice boost by scoring four goals in Barca's 7-0 crushing of Real Madrid on Oct. 4.)
If Pina's candidacy falls short, it's likely because of a reasonably quiet performance in last year's Champions League. Her five combined goals and assists in the competition ranked sixth on the team and well behind Putellas' 14 and Pajor's 12. She didn't start in the final against OL Lyonnes, either.
It's really hard to stand out at Barca, and I guess you could say Pina only partially did so.
The case for Caldentey
Last year's second-place finisher played in more of a defensive midfield role for Arsenal last season, which rendered her less prolific in front of goal: She went from 19 goals in 2024-25 to just seven in 2025-26. Maybe that hurts her candidacy this year, but it really shouldn't because she was as dominant as ever.
In Champions League and WSL play for Arsenal, Caldentey was first in passes completed (1,851), passes received (1,833), progressive carries (244), progressive passes (372), chances created (64), successful tackles (63) and ball recoveries in both the midfield (112) and attacking third (43). The 30-year-old might be an even better pivot than goal scorer.
The case for Dumornay
Maybe no one in the world forces the issue more than Dumornay. She's ostensibly a midfielder for OL Lyonnes, but while she put in only the sixth-most minutes on the team in Champions League play, she led the eventual runners-up in goals (five), shots (31), shots on goal (10), fouls won in the attacking third (six) and ball recoveries in the attacking third (18). Her stat line and touches heat map gives "right winger" more than "central midfielder." She's both at once.
The 23-year-old continues to lead Haiti to great heights as well. She famously scored both goals in their playoff final match against Chile before the 2023 World Cup, and she scored three more as Haiti romped through qualification for November's CONCACAF W Championship. (Haiti plays Camberos' Mexico in the quarterfinals. With a win, they'll qualify for the 2027 World Cup, and with a loss they'll end up in a playoff.)
It's possible that the dominance of both Spain and Barcelona makes it impossible for someone outside of one or both of those orbits to win the award this year. But she's awfully deserving.
The case for Putellas
It sure seems like this is Putellas' award to lose, and considering her age (32), along with the fact that she left Barcelona for a new challenge with the London City Lionesses this past summer, it would be easy to assume that a vote for her is a vote for a lifetime achievement award of sorts.
But look at the stats above again -- she had as many overall goal contributions (41) as Pina and only one fewer than Pajor, she was excellent for Spain in both the Nations League and World Cup qualification, and in Barca's Champions League title run she finished first on the team in assists (six), chances created (35), shots (38), xG created (7.5) and ball recoveries in the attacking third (20) and second in goals (eight), shots on goal (14), passes received (722), ground duels won (40), fouls suffered (11) and total ball recoveries (58). She had two goals and three assists in the quarterfinal romp over Real Madrid and another two goals in the semis against Bayern.
Putellas was Barca's best player in Barca's most important competition, and she's still a national team force. Her case isn't open-and-shut, but if she wins, she'll have earned it.