Ada Hegerberg keeps her Ballon d'Or somewhere safe — and that's all she's saying. "It's so valuable that I've never told the truth about where it is," the Lyon forward admitted. "It's at my home, but I won't say whether that's in France or Norway." Six years on from lifting the award, the secrecy still says something about just how much it means to her.
Hegerberg made history on December 3, 2018, when France Football extended the Ballon d'Or to women's football for the first time. She won it without serious debate. A Norwegian striker, from a country of five million people where skiing and skating dominate the cultural conversation, had just claimed football's most iconic individual prize.
The weight of being first
She's honest about what followed. The platform was real, but so was the pressure. "Winning it gave me a completely different kind of responsibility. We have to tell younger players that not everything is beautiful at the beginning. In my case, it was a real lesson."
That's not the kind of thing you hear often from athletes reflecting on their biggest night. It's a more useful truth than a highlight reel.
Now 30, Hegerberg knows the path back to the Ballon d'Or runs through Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí, who have dominated the award in recent years. She's not pretending otherwise. "I know what it takes — 50 goals and winning everything. Then we'll do the math at the end of the season." Measured. Calculated. Not ruling anything out.
Oslo, May 23
The more immediate prize is the Champions League final. Lyon face Barcelona on May 23 — in Oslo. For Hegerberg, playing a European final in her home country, having already won six Champions League titles with Lyon, is the kind of alignment that only comes around once.
Barcelona will be heavy favourites with most books given their domestic dominance, but Lyon in a knockout final, with Hegerberg motivated like this, is not a team to write off lightly. She's been decisive in each of those six title runs. There's no reason to think this time is different.
"I had never even allowed myself to dream of the Ballon d'Or," she said. "It felt unattainable for women's soccer when I was young." Now she's won it once and is openly calculating how to win it again. The trophy is hidden. The ambition isn't.
