Paris Saint-Germain have nine Ballon d’Or nominees on this year’s 30-man list — and in doing so they have gone somewhere no club in the award’s history has been before. According to Get French Football News, PSG are the first club ever to have nine players nominated in back-to-back editions.
The full list of nominees for the award, organised by France Football and handed out in Paris on 26 October, was revealed on Tuesday. Nine of the 30 names wear the Rouge et Bleu — exactly as they did last year.
The nine PSG Ballon d’Or nominees in full
Achraf Hakimi, Nuno Mendes, Vitinha, João Neves, Fabián Ruiz, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Willian Pacho, captain Marquinhos and reigning winner Ousmane Dembélé all made the cut. It is a spread that tells its own story about how Luis Enrique’s side won a second European Cup: two full-backs, three midfielders, two centre-halves and two forwards. This is not a team carried by one name.
Ferran Torres also appears on the list, credited as “Barcelona/Paris Saint-Germain” after his summer move to the capital — though his qualifying season was spent in Catalonia, which is why GFFN’s count of current Parisians stops at nine.
There were two absences that raised eyebrows. Désiré Doué, a regular for Paris, was left out — a snub we covered earlier on Tuesday. So was Bradley Barcola, who left the Parc des Princes for Liverpool during the summer window.
Why nine is such a big number
For context: Bayern Munich are the next best represented club on the 2026 list with four nominees. That is a gap of five between the European champions and everybody else.
Real Madrid have previously placed nine players in a single edition of the Ballon d’Or. What no club had managed until now, per GFFN, is doing it twice running. It is the kind of statistical footnote that only happens when a squad stays together and keeps winning, and it lands in the same season Paris became one of only nine clubs to retain the European Cup, and only the second to do it in the Champions League era after Real Madrid.
Dembélé expects it to stay in Paris
Dembélé, who won the award last September, has already said he thinks the trophy is not leaving the dressing room. Speaking to L’Équipe, he named Kvaratskhelia, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé as his top three, pointedly leaving himself out. Asked if that was humility, he said simply: “Yeah, that’s it.”
He also flagged Michael Olise, Lamine Yamal, Fabián Ruiz and Willian Pacho as players in the conversation — two more Parisians, which rather underlines the point about the depth of this squad.
A welcome headline in a bruising week
The timing does Paris no harm. On the pitch, the season has been grim by their standards: beaten by Lens in the Trophée des Champions, two Ligue 1 draws and then a 2-1 defeat to Monaco, leaving them seven points off the leaders after three games. The UEFA Super Cup win over Aston Villa remains the only victory of the campaign so far.
Luis Enrique has not hidden from it. “If we’re just talking about results, it’s been a disastrous start to the season,” he admitted at his press conference, before adding: “There are things to improve, but we deserve more points.”
His chance to change the mood comes quickly. PSG open their Champions League defence against Slovan Bratislava, coached by Yaya Touré, on Wednesday. Nine nominees is a reminder of what this squad is capable of. The next few weeks will decide whether it reads as a celebration or a receipt.
