{"id":37473,"date":"2025-09-22T22:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T22:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37473\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T22:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T22:55:09","slug":"ballon-dor-ousmane-dembele-and-aitana-bonmati-named-best-in-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37473\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballon d\u2019Or: Ousmane Dembele and Aitana Bonmati named best in football"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Ballon d\u2019Or has not really been an objective for me in my career but I worked hard for the team to win the Champions League.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old Yamal, who was a teammate of Dembele\u2019s at Barcelona when he first broke through in 2023, earlier won the Kopa Trophy for the best player aged under 21 – the second year running he has taken that award.<\/p>\n

Aitana Bonmati wins third straight Ballon d\u2019Or<\/p>\n

Barcelona and Spain star Aitana Bonmati won the Women\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or, the third consecutive year she has taken the prize.<\/p>\n

Bonmati edged out Mariona Caldentey, her teammate in the Spain side beaten on penalties by England in the Women\u2019s Euro 2025 final in July.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old midfielder also lost the Women\u2019s Champions League final with her club last season, at the hands of Caldentey\u2019s Arsenal.<\/p>\n

Bonmati was named player of the tournament at the Euros<\/a>, despite not starting either of Spain\u2019s first two matches as she recovered from a bout of viral meningitis.<\/p>\n

Alessia Russo, one of the nominees from the triumphant England European Championship team, came in third place.<\/p>\n

The Ballon d\u2019Or is the most prestigious individual prize in men\u2019s and women\u2019s football, and Bonmati\u2019s run of three in a row follows back-to-back victories for her Barcelona and Spain teammate Alexia Putellas.<\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s Ada Hegerberg and United States star Megan Rapinoe are the only other players to have won the Women\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or since it was introduced in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Ballon d\u2019Or has not really been an objective for me in my career but I worked hard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34502,95,34498,3390,34503,31100,34501,34499,5213,19134,1221,78,18794,685,14731,19476,20562,3025,10136,111,139,69,34500,6943,13235,10512,34504,205,34505,6926,6102,213,28522,1361,8488],"class_list":["post-37473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aitana","tag-and","tag-ballon","tag-best","tag-bonmati","tag-champions","tag-dembele","tag-dor","tag-football","tag-forward","tag-france","tag-in","tag-individual","tag-last","tag-league","tag-lifted","tag-mens","tag-most","tag-named","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ousmane","tag-paris","tag-prestigious","tag-prize","tag-rewarding","tag-role","tag-saintgermain","tag-season","tag-side","tag-sports","tag-starring","tag-that","tag-trophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}