The Ballon d'Or ceremony took place on Monday night with Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe all in the top three

A Ballon d'Or judge heralded Lionel Messi's "abnormal" World Cup performance as the justification for placing him third in his rankings, three places above Barcelona successor Lamine Yamal. Australian journalist Daniel Garb, who has been his country's judge for the trophy since 2018, was pleased that Harry Kane won the title but believed Messi should've placed higher.

Garb said that this year's voting process was "the most difficult it has ever been" because it was a World Cup year. He told Football360: "In my experience, a World Cup or a Euros usually separates one or two players from the rest. This time the World Cup made it more complicated."

The journalist's top two performers at the tournament were Messi and Rodri, but their club seasons prevented them from collecting another Ballon d'Or. Garb placed Kane and Kylian Mbappe in his top two, and while the latter had a slightly better World Cup, he put Kane first due to his impressive campaign with Bayern.

He sadded: "Goals aren't the only thing we base it on, and they’re not the only thing Kane does. He drops deep, he helps build the play and he creates for others. He's much more than a finisher, and he did it for England as well as Bayern over the course of the calendar season.

"The World Cup is what made me doubt it. Kane didn’t have his greatest tournament, scoring six goals as England finished third. Mbappe won the Golden Boot with 10 goals in eight games. In the end, a gap of 15 goals was just too much. If Kane had scored five to 10 fewer, Mbappé probably wins it."

Garb was also impressed by Messi for his domestic season as well as his World Cup campaign, adding: "That’s why Messi was third on my ballot. His World Cup was abnormal again. He finished second in the Golden Boot race with eight goals and second to Rodri for the Golden Ball, carrying Argentina to a final they lost 1-0 to Spain after extra time. And yes, it’s MLS, but he still did it domestically."

Despite Yamal winning the World Cup at just 19 and cleaning up for Barcelona, he dropped all the way to sixth on Garb's list. "Lamine Yamal finished third overall, and he made history with a third straight Kopa Trophy, but I had him sixth. Yamal didn’t do anything wrong. I just felt the players above him had either greater output or greater World Cups, and as brilliant as he is, that elevated them," explained Garb.

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He placed Yamal's new Barca team-mate, Rodri, above him in fourth due to him winning the Golden Ball at the major tournament, with Garb claiming he "didn’t play enough club football to be my winner."

Kane's Bayern team-mate Michael Olise was placed fifth due to his assists record, with this statistic the one that "stood out above everything else" to the Australian juror. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Erling Haaland, Pau Cubarsi and Jude Bellingham rounded out the top 10 for Garb as he hailed the Georgia international the most out of this quartet.

He added: "The name I keep coming back to is Kvaratskhelia, and you’d love to see Georgia get into a big tournament while they’ve got him in the team."

Ballon d'Or 2026 official rankings vs Garb's voting scheme

1. Harry Kane
2. Kylian Mbappe
3. Lamine Yamal (Garb put Lionel Messi)
4. Rodri
5. Lionel Messi (Garb put Michael Olise)
6. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Garb put Lamine Yamal)
7. Ousmane Dembele (Garb put Khvicha Kvaratskhelia)
8. Erling Haaland
9. Michael Olise (Garb put Pau Cubarsi)
10. Fabian Ruiz (Garb put Jude Bellingham)