LONDON (The Thursday Times) — Harry Kane has won the Ballon d’Or, becoming the first English player to be named the world’s best footballer since Michael Owen in 2001, after a season in which he scored 73 goals for Bayern Munich and England.
The 33-year-old striker was crowned at the London Palladium on Monday night, the first time in the award’s 70-year history that the ceremony has been held in London. Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé finished second and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal third.
“Not many people would have thought it, and maybe even I wouldn’t have thought I’d be this far,” Kane told the broadcaster DAZN. “I was never the person that people thought was going to be the superstar like some of the guys now. I had to bide my time and work hard.”
A record season
Kane scored 61 goals in 51 matches for Bayern last season, a club record for a single campaign and 19 more than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues. No one had scored that many in a season since Cristiano Ronaldo’s 61 for Real Madrid 11 years ago. He was the Bundesliga’s top scorer with 36 goals, added 14 in the Champions League and 10 in the German Cup, including a hat-trick in the 3-0 final win over Stuttgart, as Bayern won the domestic double.
He won despite falling short of football’s two biggest prizes: Bayern went out in the Champions League semi-finals, and England lost in the World Cup semi-finals, though Kane scored six goals at the tournament. His previous best Ballon d’Or finish was 10th.
Kane is the fifth Englishman to win the award, after Stanley Matthews in 1956, Bobby Charlton in 1966, Kevin Keegan in 1978 and 1979, and Owen. He is also the first Bayern player to win it since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981. England manager Thomas Tuchel called it a “huge honour”, and the Wembley arch was lit gold in his honour.
Putellas makes it three
In the women’s award, Spain midfielder Alexia Putellas won the Ballon d’Or Féminin for a record-equalling third time after captaining Barcelona to a quadruple, including the Champions League, before joining London City Lionesses in July. Barcelona’s Ewa Pajor was second and Manchester City’s Khadija Shaw third. Spanish players have now won the women’s prize six years running.
A chaotic night
The ceremony started 45 minutes late after guests were held up by traffic and crowds near Oxford Street, which had been closed to cars that day. Outside the theatre, some fans climbed and tore down security barriers. Hours before the start, the official Ballon d’Or website briefly published an article naming Kane as the winner, alongside similar articles about other nominees, which a spokesperson said had been “inadvertently published online”.
