The Ballon d’Or is soccer’s most famous individual prize, yet some of the finest players in history never lifted it. This countdown ranks the five greatest players who never won the Ballon d’Or, built on trophies, longevity, and the moments that defined an era. At the top sits a striker who scored 55 goals in a single treble season and still walked away empty handed.
Why this list matters
Great careers are measured in trophies, and these five won almost everything. Champions Leagues, World Cups, league titles, and continental crowns fill their cabinets. The one gap on each résumé is the golden ball that France Football hands out every year.
Timing hurt most of them. Several peaked while Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo shared 13 of the awards between 2008 and 2023. Others played positions that voters rarely reward. Here is the countdown, from number five to the biggest snub of all.
5. Thierry Henry
Thierry Henry defined the Premier League for the better part of a decade and remains Arsenal’s leading scorer. His 2003-04 season with the unbeaten Arsenal side, remembered as the Invincibles, is one of the greatest campaigns any forward has produced in England.
Henry came closest to the prize in 2003, when he finished second behind Pavel Nedved of Juventus. Many observers felt the numbers pointed clearly toward the Frenchman that year. He later added a Champions League and a La Liga title at Barcelona in 2009, and he already owned a World Cup winners’ medal with France from 1998.
- Premier League goals in 2003-04: 30
4. Paolo Maldini
Paolo Maldini is widely seen as one of the greatest defenders the sport has produced. He spent his entire career at AC Milan, winning seven Serie A titles and five Champions Leagues across 25 seasons.
His best Ballon d’Or result came in 1994, when he finished third after reaching the World Cup final with Italy. Defenders almost never win the award, and Maldini ran straight into that bias throughout his career. He captained Milan to a fifth European crown in 2007 at the age of 38, becoming the oldest captain to lift the trophy.
- Appearances for AC Milan: 902
3. Xavi Hernández
Xavi Hernández was the metronome at the heart of the most dominant club and national teams of his generation. He directed play for the Barcelona side that won four Champions Leagues and for the Spain team that claimed the 2010 World Cup along with two European titles.
His Ballon d’Or story is remarkable for its consistency. Xavi finished third in three straight years, in 2009, 2010, and 2011, always behind Messi and usually behind Ronaldo too. He has since joked that he would happily settle for a “Ballon de Bronze” given how often he landed on the last step of the podium.
- Ballon d’Or podium finishes: 3 straight (2009 to 2011)
2. Andrés Iniesta
Andrés Iniesta produced the single most important goal in Spanish soccer history, the extra time winner in the 2010 World Cup final. He won four Champions Leagues, nine La Liga titles, and two European Championships alongside Xavi at Barcelona.
Iniesta finished second in the 2010 Ballon d’Or, in a top three made up entirely of Barcelona players. Years later France Football publicly apologized for never giving him the award, a rare admission from the organizers. Few players have won so much while the individual prize stayed just out of reach.
- Ballon d’Or best finish: 2nd (2010)
1. Robert Lewandowski
Robert Lewandowski tops the list because of one of the strangest chapters in the award’s history. In the 2019-20 season he scored 55 goals in all competitions and led Bayern Munich to the treble, including the Champions League. He was the clear favorite for the 2020 Ballon d’Or.
Then France Football cancelled the 2020 award because of the pandemic, the first cancellation since the prize began in 1956. Lewandowski returned in 2021 with another enormous season and finished second to Messi, who used his own acceptance speech to say the Pole had deserved the 2020 honor. No player has come so close to winning without ever getting there.
- Goals in Bayern’s 2019-20 treble: 55
The verdict
Ranking these careers means weighing greatness against bad luck. Henry, Maldini, and Xavi all had strong claims in different years and simply met the wrong voters at the wrong time. Iniesta carries extra emotional weight thanks to a World Cup winning goal and a public apology from the people who run the award.
Lewandowski earns the top spot because the prize was literally taken off the table in his best year. Together these five show that the Ballon d’Or, for all its prestige, has never told the full story of who the best players really were.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the best soccer player to never win the Ballon d’Or? Opinions differ, but Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández lead most lists thanks to their trophy hauls with Barcelona and Spain. Robert Lewandowski has the strongest recent case after the 2020 award was cancelled during his peak.
Has a defender ever won the Ballon d’Or? Yes, though it is rare. Fabio Cannavaro won in 2006 and Franz Beckenbauer won twice in the 1970s, but pure defenders like Paolo Maldini have almost always been passed over in favor of forwards.
Why did Robert Lewandowski never win the Ballon d’Or? His best chance came in 2020, when France Football cancelled the award because of the pandemic. He then finished second in 2021 to Lionel Messi, so timing rather than performance kept him off the winners’ list.
Where can I watch these leagues in the US? Peacock carries the Premier League, ESPN+ shows La Liga and the Bundesliga, and Paramount+ streams Serie A and the Champions League. Those services are the easiest way to follow Europe’s top competitions from the United States.
Arsenal
Thierry Henry