The 2025 Ballon d’Or ceremony created a perfect homecoming for French forward Ousmane Dembélé as he took home soccer’s most prestigious award.
Dembélé led his football club, Paris Saint-Germain, to a quadruple in the 2024-25 season, winning the French soccer league — League 1 — the Coupe de France, the Trophée des Champions and the prestigious Champions League.
The Ballon d’Or is France Football Magazine’s award given to the player deemed to have the best individual season of all football players across the globe. The ceremony took place on Sept. 22 and was decided by votes from 100 journalists, one from each of the Union of European Football Associations’ top 100-ranked countries. Journalists rank their top 10 favorites from a preselected group of 30 footballers. Their top choice is given 15 points, second is given 12, all the way down to 10th, who is given one point. The points are then totalled, and the players are ranked according to their points.
Dembélé received a total of 1,380 points, over 300 points higher than 18-year-old Barcelona star Lamine Yamal, who finished second with 1,059 points. PSG’s Vitinha, Liverpool’s Mohammad Salah and Barcelona’s Raphinha rounded out the top five. Dembélé and Yamal were the only two players to surpass the 1,000-point barrier.
Dembélé had a total of 35 goals and 16 assists in 53 appearances in the 2024-25 season, the fourth most goal contributions in Europe’s top five leagues. This includes eight goals and six assists in the Champions League, Europe’s premier competition and the most competitive knockout trophy in club football. Dembélé led PSG’s charge to winning this season, bringing the team their first-ever UCL trophy.
PSG started their Champions League campaign on the back foot. Although they had an early win against Spanish side Girona, early losses against Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich stopped them from succeeding early on. Out of the 32 teams in the Champions League, only the top eight automatically qualify for the round of 16, and the next-ranked 16 teams go to an elimination qualifier game. After a dominant performance against reigning Premier League holders Manchester City, PSG drew themselves out of the elimination spots and snuck into the playoffs.
Each round is played in two games, one at each team’s home stadium. PSG won its first game with a 10-0 aggregate score against French team Brest, with Dembélé scoring a brace (two goals). Dembélé then led PSG in wins over Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal, all of which play in the English Premier League. Dembélé and PSG then thumped Italian giants Inter Milan 5-0 in the Champions League final, the largest ever score disparity in a Champions League final in the sport’s history.
In his first time ever being nominated for the award, Dembélé became the sixth-ever French player to win the Ballon d’Or and the first to win it while playing for PSG. Dembélé also became the 10th ever player to win football’s most prestigious treble of awards: a World Cup (winning in 2022 with France), a UCL and a Ballon d’Or. The only other active player to accomplish this feat is Lionel Messi. How can you not applaud such greatness?