A few days after the Ballon d’Or gala, France Football revealed the voting breakdown for the prizes awarded at the Theatre du Chatelet.
With Ousmane Dembele and Aitana Bonmati winning the main awards, and Lamine Yamal and Vicky Lopez taking the Men’s and Women’s Kopa Trophy for best young players, the details of how each jury voted have now been published.
As revealed overnight, Lamine lost to Dembele in the Ballon d’Or race by a margin of 321 votes.
Lamine Yamal dominates
Unlike the Ballon d’Or, which is decided by 100 journalists from the 100 top-ranked FIFA nations, the Kopa Trophy is voted on by winners of the Ballon d’Or.
In total, 27 footballers and former footballers participated, including recent winners such as Rodri, Karim Benzema, Lionel Messi, and Luka Modric, alongside older winners such as Gianni Rivera, Oleg Blokhin, Allan Simonsen, and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
Of this jury, 24 out of 27 placed Lamine first. The only exceptions were Roberto Baggio (voted for Desire Doue, Joao Neves, and Lamine in third), Ruud Gullit (who did not include him in his Top 3), and Pavel Nedved (who put Lamine second).
The rest of the jury all voted Lamine as their first choice. Former Barcelona captain and legend Lionel Messi placed the 18-year-old first, and his teammate Pau Cubarsi third.
Fellow club icons Hristo Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, and Ronaldinho also placed the winger first.
Real Madrid greats like Zinedine Zidane, Kaka, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema, and Luis Figo also voted for Lamine in the first place.
Other winners such as Rivera, Blokhin, Simonsen, Rummenigge, Igor Belanov, Marco van Basten, Lothar Matthaus, Jean-Pierre Papin, George Weah, Matthias Sammer, Michael Owen, Andriy Shevchenko, Fabio Cannavaro, and Rodri, also went for Yamal.
Only three historical winners did not cast a vote: Kevin Keegan, Michel Platini, and Cristiano Ronaldo (2008, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017).
In the end, Lamine finished with a total of 124 points out of a possible 135. In 2024, he had won the Kopa Trophy with 113 points.
