Every defender who has won the Ballon d'Or

Since 1956 the Ballon d’Or has gone to a defender four times, and two of those were the same man. Franz Beckenbauer won it in 1972 and 1976, Matthias Sammer in 1996 and Fabio Cannavaro in 2006. Every edition since has gone to a midfielder or a forward: 18 of them, counting 2025 and leaving out 2020, when the award was cancelled.

The 2026 ceremony is on 26 October at the London Palladium, the first one held outside Paris. Nine of the 30 men on the shortlist are defenders. Here is what the four winners had to beat, and how close the others came.

The four wins

Franz Beckenbauer, 1972 and 1976

Beckenbauer is still the only defender to win it twice. In 1972 he had captained West Germany to the European Championship, and he beat his Bayern teammate Gerd Müller by two points, 81 to 79. Müller had scored the goals. Beckenbauer was the sweeper who carried the ball out of defence and started the attacks himself.

He was second in each of the next two years, behind Johan Cruyff in 1974 and Oleg Blokhin in 1975, before winning again in 1976, the year Bayern completed a third European Cup in a row.

Matthias Sammer, 1996

The closest vote the award has had. Sammer finished on 144 points and Ronaldo on 143. It was only the second year that players from outside Europe could win, after George Weah in 1995, and Ronaldo was 20. Sammer had played sweeper for the Borussia Dortmund side that won the Bundesliga and for the Germany team that won Euro 96, where he was named player of the tournament.

Fabio Cannavaro, 2006

Cannavaro won after captaining Italy to the World Cup in Berlin. His goalkeeper at that tournament, Gianluigi Buffon, came second, and Thierry Henry, who lost the final to them, was third. By the time the award was handed out Cannavaro had moved from Juventus to Real Madrid, which is the club the record books list next to his name.

The defenders who came close

Franco Baresi was second in 1989 with 80 points to Marco van Basten’s 119. Frank Rijkaard was third, so AC Milan, fresh from winning the European Cup, filled the whole podium.

Paolo Maldini never won it and was third twice. The second time, in 2003, he had just lifted the Champions League as Milan captain after beating Juventus in the final. The award went to Pavel Nedvěd, a Juventus player who missed that final through suspension.

Virgil van Dijk came closest of any defender since Cannavaro. In 2019, after winning the Champions League with Liverpool, he lost to Lionel Messi by seven points, 686 to 679. It was Messi’s sixth.

The best finish by a defender since then is Achraf Hakimi’s sixth place in 2025, with Nuno Mendes tenth. Both played for the Paris Saint-Germain side that won the Champions League; their teammate Ousmane Dembélé won the award.

Why it keeps going to forwards

Lev Yashin in 1963 is still the only goalkeeper to win, and the four defensive wins all came in years when the defender had also won a major international tournament or carried a team to a European title. A forward can win on goals alone. A defender has needed a summer where the whole sport watched him do the job and win something with it.

The nine defenders on the 2026 shortlist

The 2026 award covers the 2025-26 season. The nine defenders among the 30 men nominated:

• Pau Cubarsí
• Marc Cucurella
• Gabriel
• Achraf Hakimi
• Marquinhos
• Nuno Mendes
• Willian Pacho
• William Saliba
• Dayot Upamecano

Paris Saint-Germain has the most nominees of any club, ten of the 30. If one of the nine wins on 26 October, they will be the first defender in 20 years to do it.

Test yourself on them

Beckenbauer, Sammer, Cannavaro, Baresi, Maldini, Van Dijk and most of this year’s nominated defenders are among the 895 players in Guess the Footballer, where each guess shows how close you are on nationality, league, club, position and age. Their surnames are also answers in Football Wordle.