Putellas wins record-equalling third Ballon d’Or

Share on Twitter Spain midfielder Alexia Putellas has won the Ballon d’Or Feminin for a record-equalling third time, keeping the prize in Spanish hands for a sixth consecutive year.

Putellas, 32, captained Barcelona to Champions League glory as part of a quadruple in 2025-26, before joining Women’s Super League (WSL) side London City Lionesses in July.

She joins Spain team-mate Aitana Bonmati on three Ballon d’Or Feminin crowns – her former Barcelona colleague won the award in 2023, 2024 and 2025 after Putellas did so in 2021 and 2022.

The past six Ballons d’Or have been won by the Spanish pair, with Norway’s Ada Hegerberg (2018) and Megan Rapinoe of the United States (2019) the only non-Spaniards to claim the prize.

Putellas’ latest victory caps a remarkable return to the pinnacle of world football after suffering a career-threatening anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in 2022.

“All the boys and girls around the world – if you love football and if you want to play football, play football. It doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or if you’re a girl,” Putellas said.

“Doesn’t matter where you come from. Don’t listen if someone tells you, you can’t do it. Believe in yourself.”

She collected the most votes from an international panel of journalists across Fifa’s top-50 ranked countries, with Barcelona striker Ewa Pajor coming second and Manchester City forward Khadija Shaw third.

Meanwhile, England captain Harry Kane won the men’s Ballon d’Or, becoming the first English player to do so since Michael Owen in 2001.

While Barcelona are always overwhelming favourites to win the three competitions on offer in Spain, Putellas’ performances last season showed that she is still among the world’s elite.

Nicknamed ‘La Reina’ – meaning the queen – Putellas scored 21 goals and provided 13 assists in all competitions, ranking her third and second respectively among players across Europe’s top five leagues.

Seven of those goals came in the Women’s Champions League as Barcelona claimed a fourth continental title in six seasons.

Only Pernille Harder (eight), Alessia Russo (nine) and Ewa Pajor (11) scored more, all of whom are strikers by trade.

But Putellas’ contributions to Barcelona’s attacking play went far beyond scoring goals herself.

In Liga F – which Barcelona won for a seventh consecutive season – she finished joint-sixth for assists (seven) and fourth for open-play chances created (40).

Across Europe’s top five leagues, only Claudia Pina (199), Vicky Lopez (183) and Georgia Stanway (168) recorded more sequence involvements ending in an open-play shot than Putellas (151).

In all competitions, she created more chances (89, 19 of which were big chances) and completed more passes ending in the final third (965) than any other player in Liga F, the Champions League, Copa de la Reina and Supercopa de Espana.

Only Bayern Munich’s Klara Buhl created as many chances as Putellas in the Champions League last season (36), the most by a player in a single edition of the competition since Caroline Graham Hansen in 2021-22 (38).

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