What are the voting criteria? (A) Individual performance, (B) team success, and (C) player behavior, such as fair play. (B) and (C) are difficult to quantify, so let's focus on (A) exclusively. It's also weighted most heavily in the official vote count. Relevant competitions are: WC, CL, domestic league, domestic cup, other national team matches, such as WC qualifiers (weighted from 5 to 1, in that order). We all have our opinions about players based on anecdotal evidence, eye test, gut feeling, cognitive bias. We need to turn to larger sample sizes and more objective measures. Sofascore season averages per competition are the way to go. When these numbers are weighted (as described above) and averaged in turn, the result is surprising and will (presumably) not please the audience:

1. Mbappé 8.03

2. Yamal 7.76

3. Kane 7.69

4. Olise 7.58

5. Rodri 7.41

So, there you have it. The best player in 2025/26 was Mbappé, by a substantial margin. And the best player should win the Ballon d'Orreur, I guess.