Lamine Yamal may have lost out to Ousmane Dembélé in the much-debated race for this year’s Ballon d’Or, but Barcelona’s star winger received the recognition of his peers, which may be even more valuable.
Unlike the Ballon d’Or, which is voted for by 100 journalists from the 100 highest-ranked FIFA nations, FIFPRO’s World XI exclusively draws upon the opinion of footballers to decipher the best on the planet.
More than 20,000 professionals were polled to vote on the standout performers from the 2024–25 campaign and, unsurprisingly, Yamal and Dembélé both made the final lineup.
However, FIFPRO have revealed the full voting results, showing that 50% of those polled included Yamal in their World XI, surpassing the ratio which Dembélé could muster (45%).
🚨 How 20,309 professional men's footballers voted in the 2025 FIFPRO #World11. pic.twitter.com/ltb2knh8sj
— FIFPRO (@FIFPRO) November 4, 2025
For many, this could be viewed as vindication. In the immediate aftermath of the 2025 Ballon d’Or ceremony, Yamal’s father described his son’s second-place finish as an act of flagrant “moral damage.”
“I think Lamine Yamal is the best player in the world by far, by a huge margin. Not because he’s my son, but because he’s the best player in the world. I think there are no rivals.”
The world’s football journalists would disagree with Mounir Nasraoui. Of the 100 votes cast for this year’s Ballon d’Or, Dembélé was ranked first 73 times. Yamal, by comparison, only received 11 such votes.
There is little doubting the importance of the award handed out by France Football each year. As Yamal himself admitted on the eve of the ceremony in Paris, “I told my friends, I don’t dream about winning a Ballon d’Or, I dream about winning many.”
Yet, the views of footballing peers clearly carries some weight in the Barcelona dressing room. Yamal’s clubmate Raphinha engaged in a social media blitz after it was revealed that he hadn’t made the World XI on Monday. The reigning La Liga Player of the Year—who dwarfed Yamal’s attacking statistics last season, directly contributing to 56 goals compared to the teenager’s 39—posted a series of pictures showing every award he collected last term.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Lamine Yamal Gets Revenge on Ousmane Dembele After Ballon d’Or Snub.
