Best Ballon d'or 2022 players

Kylian Mbappé (France, Paris) leads the Ballon d'Or ranking with 1461 ELO points over 41 duels, ahead of Robert Lewandowski (Poland, Barcelona) and Vinicius Jr (Brazil, Real Madrid).

A 72-point gap separates Mbappé from Lewandowski at the summit, the sharpest divide in the entire ranking. Vinicius Jr trails Lewandowski by just 3 points, placing the Brazilian within reach of second place. Erling Haaland (Norway, Manchester City) sits fourth with 1381 ELO points after 37 duels, while Harry Kane (England, Tottenham) completes the top five with 1350 points. At the opposite end, Fabinho (Brazil, Liverpool) anchors the table at rank 30 with 975 ELO points and a 26% win rate across 47 duels. Dusan Vlahovic (Serbia, Juventus) and Sébastien Haller (Ivory Coast, Dortmund) occupy ranks 29 and 28, both struggling to convince voters in head-to-head contests. The bottom placements reveal a community consensus: defensive midfielders and strikers with underwhelming seasons face steep resistance when matched against attacking stars.

This ranking draws from 6083 duels submitted by 74 players across 30 contenders, updated on 12 October 2026. The sample captures a clear preference for forwards who combined club success with international impact, reflected in the ELO distribution and win rates. Cast your own vote at VAINKEURZ to shift the standings or confirm the current hierarchy. Every duel refines the ranking and brings the community closer to a collective answer on who deserved the trophy most.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →