Ousmane Dembélé and Aitana Bonmatí land Ballon d’Or awards as England duo honoured | OneFootball

On a breathlessly glitzy night in Paris Ousmane Dembélé won the men’s Ballon d’Or, a moment of triumph that brought a fevered Théâtre du Châtelet to its feet and led to scenes of pyrotechnic celebration among the Paris Saint-Germain fans massed outside on the banks of the Seine.

Victory in the top men’s award was a reflection both of PSG’s Champions League triumph and Dembélé’s own stellar form since Christmas. The vote also represents a startling turnaround in his own footballing arc, almost exactly 12 months on from being left out of the PSG squad to play Arsenal after a heated argument with his manager during a game at Rennes.

A subsequent tactical switch by Luis Enrique, moving Dembélé into the centre, led to an explosion of 25 goals in 20 games from December to March, a run of form his manager put down to something his star attacker must have eaten over Christmas.

The culmination of that six-month surge arrived with May’s annihilation of Inter in the Champions League final, a match marked by the spectacle of Dembélé literally crouching like a sprinter to begin his forward press.

It is a genuinely heartening comeback story for a likable, humble, prodigiously talented footballer, who was treated roughly at times at Barcelona as he struggled to adapt to the pressure of a hugely expensive move, but who saw off the darling of La Masia, Lamine Yamal, in the final vote here.

At the podium Dembélé struggled to hold back tears several times as he thanked everyone from his home suburb to his agent, before finally inviting his mother on stage to share the moment of glory.

Earlier on it had also been a night of flowers for English football as the women’s game swept the opening half of the ceremony. There were awards for England’s head coach, Sarina Wiegman, the England goalkeeper Hannah Hampton and Arsenal as club of the year. Such was the degree of Anglo-dominance at that point there were scattered boos from the Parisian crowd as Arsenal’s players went up to take their gong.

Alessia Russo had been tipped to take the top individual women’s award. In the event the Ballon d’Or was won by Aitana Bonmatí for the third successive year, despite ending on the losing side to Russo in the finals of both the European Championship and the Champions League. Russo came third behind her Arsenal teammate Mariona Caldentey.

From early in the evening the venue had been crammed to the gods with gleamingly attired footballers, their glamorous hangers-on and the usual indeterminate men in flamboyant tuxedos. There was an early flush of excitement as the men’s Kopa trophy for best young player was won for the second year running by Lamine Yamal, present in a deliciously soft and shiny deep blue suit and immaculate bleach rinse.

After which, the English arrived. Wiegman won the Johan Cruyff award for top female coach, recognition of her success at the summer’s Euros. The Lionesses coach went against the prevailing neutral tone, using the platform to speak about the need to remain vigilant as the sport grows.

“I see this award as a recognition of the women’s game and of our journey and where we have come to so far. With that growth comes responsibility. We have to take that responsibility and try to keep our industry welcoming and inclusive, a place where everyone belongs.

“I hope we can keep fighting together against misogyny and ­racism. Football should always be united and never divided.”

Hampton, of Chelsea and England, won the inaugural women’s Yashin Trophy for goalkeeper of the year and paid an emotional tribute to Matt Beard, the former Liverpool Women manager, who died last week.

Manchester City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma won the men’s goalkeeping award, for which he was billed as a PSG player. But this was Paris and nobody was going to nitpick. Arsenal’s Viktor Gyökeres won the Gerd Müller trophy as the highest scoring men’s player, successor to Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappé and Harry Kane.

Then came Dembélé’s moment, a victory that is significant not just for a PSG project which craves starry, brand-building heat, but for French football, which is for some reason convinced (incorrectly) that it never wins individual awards.

It was a triumph for Paris too, which has transformed this show of individual star appeal into a gaudy society event, the otherwise statesmanlike L’Équipe trilling on the day of the ­ceremony that the Théâtre du Châtelet would host “beautiful people of all ranks”. True to form the red carpet was a parade of courtiers, influencers, grifters, faces, mixed in with a very happy-looking Premier League champion manager, Arne Slot, his buffed and gleaming head startlingly luminous under the hard white lights.

Above all, bringing the Ballon d’Or back to Paris is another moment of ascent for the PSG chair and most powerful person in European football, Nasser al-Khelaifi, who was also present early on to address his home audience, the first tell that Dembélé might just have won the men’s prize.