Ousmane Dembélé wins the Ballon d'Or!
A champion of Ligue 1 McDonald's, a champion of Europe and now the Ballon d'Or - France and Paris Saint-Germain forward Ousmane Dembélé took home the game's biggest individual prize on Monday evening.
"I am proud of everything I have accomplished"
The competition for the biggest individual prize in football was fierce, with a top ten that included no less than five players who helped PSG win the treble last season. Alongside Dembélé, Achraf Hakimi, Vitinha, Nuno Mendes and Gianluigi Donnarumma were all among the finalists. When the final vote came down, though, it was between Barcelona's Lamine Yamal and Dembélé, and the PSG winger became the sixth Frenchman to win the award.
He follows in the footsteps of Zinedine Zidane, Karim Benzema, Jean-Pierre Papin, Raymond Kopa and Michel Platini as the only Frenchmen to have won the award, and he is the first since Papin to have won while playing for a club in France. Accepting the award, Dembélé was overwhelmed with emotion, speaking to the long journey of his career, from his blossoming at Stade Rennais, his formative club, to his uneven spell at Barcelona to his redemptive turn of form last year.
Speaking at the ceremony, he said, "I am proud of everything I have accomplished. It's been an exceptional year, especially 2024-2025, when we won practically everything. You supported me in good times and bad, we raised our game to win all these collective trophies. This individual trophy, for me, was really won by the team."
Legend. Ousmane Dembélé. 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/H5IhlqdqKB
— Ligue 1 English (@Ligue1_ENG) September 22, 2025
Luis Enrique, Paris Saint-Germain also honored
In addition to awards for individual players, the ceremony also honors coaches and teams as a whole, and again Ligue 1 came to the fore, with Luis Enrique being named manager of the year and Paris Saint-Germain team of the year, results that will surely have been a balm after defeat in Le Classique to Marseille earlier in the day.
Finally, while he has moved on from Paris Saint-Germain after winning the Ligue 1 McDonald's, Coupe de France and Champions League with the capital side, Gianluigi Donnarumma also was honored at Monday's ceremony, being honored with the Lev Yashin trophy for the world's best goalkeeper. With 17 clean sheets in 43 appearances in all competitions, and several important displays in Champions League penalty shootouts, the Italian's prize was richly deserved.
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