Who will win the 2026 World Cup Golden Ball? Kane among England trio in top ten | OneFootball

The Real Ronado, Zinedine Zidane, Diego Forlan and of course Lionel Messi are among the past winners of the Golden Ball, awarded to the best player at the World Cup.

We bring you the odds for the 2026 edition, .

10) Declan Rice (England)

An absurd glut of assists from Bruno Fernandes in the second half of the season denied Rice the individual Premier League gongs that he was the favourite to win for much of a campaign in which the former West Ham star regularly put on midfield clinics.

He’s almost never bad and almost always very good, and if England fail to go deep we can say fairly confidently that it won’t be down to him.

9) Jude Bellingham (England)

He’s been boosted by the award of the No.10 shirt ahead of Morgan Rogers and the suggestion that a fully fit Bellingham wouldn’t be starting for England at the World Cup was frankly ludicrous. He’s the biggest of big-game players.

8) Vitinha (Portugal)

Portugal being able to call upon the best midfield partnership in club football feels like cheating. The double pivot of Vitinha and Joao Neves is a huge reason why Portugal are in fact not ‘dark horses’ as we expect plenty of uninformed pundits to dub them ahead of the tournament but very, very bright horses indeed.

7) Bruno Fernandes (Portugal)

At the peak of his powers after clean-sweeping the Premier League awards following his record-breaking 21-assist season and it’s all too easy to imagine him putting several balls on plates for the old man up top to bundle home.

6) Vinicius Junior (Brazil)

A difficult season for Real Madrid for a whole host of reasons and yet Vinicius still managed 22 goals and 14 assists.

He’s presumably looking forward to a summer back playing under Carlo Ancelotti ahead of what will either be a sickening bromance or a blazing war with Jose Mourinho depending on which Galactico the Portuguese boss decides to make an example of at the Bernabeu.

5) Lionel Messi (Argentina)

The holder of the Golden Ball after driving Argentina to win the 2022 World Cup with seven goals and three assists, and he’s back again at the age of 38.

4) Kylian Mbappe (France)

It is objectively funny that in the two seasons since leaving Paris Saint-Germain for Real Madrid, PSG have won two Champions Leagues and Los Blancos have won diddly squat, but Mbappe has also scored a ridiculous 86 goals in that time and you would be daft to bet against a guy playing in a wonderful France team who’s already scored an actual hat-trick in a World Cup final.

3) Michael Olise (France)

Having seen Olise destroy left-backs across Europe this term on his way to 53 goal contributions in 52 games for Bayern Munich it’s mad to think that at the age of 22 – yet to be capped by France – he was sat at home watching Les Bleus lose to Spain in the semi-finals of Euro 2024.

2) Lamine Yamal (Spain)

He won the Young Player of the Tournament at Euro 2024 and is the clear favourite to win the same award at the World Cup while just missing out on top spot in the betting for the bigger boys’ gong. At 18 he has won three La Liga titles with Barcelona to go with his European Championship with Spain. He’s a freak.

1) Harry Kane (England)

Plenty of tournament goals, including Golden Boots at the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2024, and a couple of finals, but never the twain shall meet. A game-winning goal in the World Cup final after 61 goals in 51 games for Bayern and surely .