Player Features
One player at a time: the career behind the season, and the season behind the verdict.
Not on the Ballot
France Football removed career achievement from the Ballon d'Or criteria four years ago. Harry Kane's journey was, officially, not on the ballot. The voters judged his season instead, and the season turned out to be the journey's closing argument.
Braut
To reach the top as a striker you need at least one extreme quality. Erling Braut Haaland is a stack of them — pace, power, and a finishing certainty that borders on the inhuman. At his first World Cup, the purest number nine of his era turned the lot of them loose on Brazil.
O Kylian
Ronaldo Nazário — O Fenômeno — was the most complete striker football had produced, and the standard the position has been measured against ever since. Kylian Mbappé is the closest thing to him the game has seen. The Phenomenon himself says so.
Hey, Jude
England have not been convincing at this World Cup; Jude Bellingham has been decisive at it regardless — two knockout ties, two braces, a semifinal reached almost in spite of the team around him. The talent has never been in question. The rarer gift, the one that keeps deciding these games, is the temperament to use it when the football is at its heaviest.
El Matador
Mikel Merino has no position. He has been a center-back, a holding midfielder, an emergency striker — whatever the day required. At this World Cup he has become the one thing Spain can rely on completely: the man they send on to finish it.