Yamal > Ronaldo: Barcelona gem will be YOUNGEST Ballon d'Or winner ever

Muhammad Butt

Updated: 10 Apr 2025 14:59 BST
5 min read

Lamine Yamal is having a tremendous season and could break a Ballon d'Or record.

Article continues under the video

Despite being just 17 year-old, Lamine Yamal has been one of the very best players in the world for Barcelona through the whole of 2024/25 up to April.

Lamine Yamal's excellence has been so relentless, his football so beautiful to watch, that people are quite rightfully talking about him as a genuine contender to win the 2025 Ballon d'Or.

And if he did win it, he would be the youngest Ballon d'Or winner in history, claiming the award at 18 years and (approximately) 121 days old.

This would put him way ahead of the great Ronaldo, who won his first Ballon d'Or in December 1997 at the age of 21 years and 96 days old.

It feels blasphemous to consider that anyone, let alone a teenager, could break Ronaldo's record. But consider just how good Lamine Yamal has been in 2024/25:

Lamine Yamal's incredible season

As of April 10, 2025...

Lamine Yamal has completed more take-ons than anyone in Europe's top five leagues (123, Jeremy Doku is second with 92) and made more goal creating actions than anyone across Europe's top five leagues (25, Mo Salah is second with 23).

© IMAGO - Lamine Yamal has been a wing wizard all through 2024/25.

Lamine Yamal also has the second-most progressive carries across Europe's top five leagues (148, Doku is first with 166) and the second most xAG (Expected Assisted Goals) across Europe's top five leagues (11.2, Salah is first with 11.3).

Lamine Yamal has more goal creating actions than anyone in the Champions League (11, Raphinha and Pedri are second with 10) and is second for completed take-ons (34, Rafael Leao is first with 39) as well.

All at 17 years-old.

Current ETV

Lamine Yamal

M, AM (R)

Barcelona

Lamine Yamal

M, AM (R)

Barcelona

ETV Range

€156.8M - €191.7M

This coming off the back of his incredible displays for Spain, where was one of the best players as they won Euro 2024 (despite being just 16 years-old for all of the games bar the final!) where he also had more assists than anyone (4).

Ronaldo: a true phenomenon

Meanwhile, we don't have advanced stats for the time, but 1997 saw Ronaldo's incredible season with Barcelona where he scored 47 goals in 49 appearances.

If you were alive to witness it, you got to see something truly special. A whirlwind of pace, power and precision no player has replicated since (2021-era Kylian Mbappe is as close as we've gotten). He was truly phenomenal, hence his moniker O Fenomeno.

© IMAGO - Kylian Mbappe circa 2021 was the closest we've seen anyone come to Ronaldo's skill-set.

The Brazilian won the Copa del Rey and Cup Winners' Cup with the Catalan club, then went on to win the Copa America and Confederations Cup with his country that same year, the final of the latter competition coming just two days before the Ballon d'Or was awarded and seeing Ronaldo bag a hat-trick against Australia.

Suffice to say, Lamine Yamal isn't going to match that level of goalscoring this year. However, he is much younger than Ronaldo was in 1997. When the Brazilian was the same age as Lamine Yamal is now, he was playing for Cruzeiro (scoring 20 goals in 21 games, but still!)

What that means is that Lamine Yamal could win the 2025, 2026 or 2027 Ballon d'Or awards and still smash Ronaldo's record as the youngest-ever winner.

What are Lamine Yamal's odds to win the Ballon d'Or?

Bookmakers still have Lamine Yamal's team-mate Raphinha as the current front-runner to win the 2025 Balon d'Or, with some placing him as a 2/1 favourite. The Brazilian is followed by Kylian Mbappe and then Ousmane Dembele, before Lamine Yamal and Mohamed Salah both at 8/1.

STATS

Lamine Yamal

M, AM (R)

Barcelona

Lamine Yamal

M, AM (R)

Barcelona

48

Games
15

Goals
19

Assists

Should he be denied until 2028, then he would fall about 25 days behind Ronaldo's record due to his birthday being July while O Fenomeno's is in September (and the Ballon d'Or ceremony moving from December to October).

For a player as good as Lamine Yamal is right now, and with the World Cup due in 2026 where Spain would be one of the heavy favourites, and considering Barcelona as a club have delivered 12 Ballon d'Or winners (a joint-record with Real Madrid), it seems more likely than not that Lamine Yamal will become the youngest-ever recipient of the award.