Cristiano Ronaldo holds more Ballon d'Or nominations than any player in history — 18 in total, edging Lionel Messi's 17. The man who many argue lost the GOAT debate still leads the one column that doesn't lie: sheer, sustained presence among the world's best.
Winning the award is one thing. Getting nominated year after year, staying at that level across different clubs, different eras, different physical peaks — that's something else entirely. Here's how the all-time list stacks up.
The Top 11, Ranked
- Cristiano Ronaldo – 18 nominations: Five wins, six runner-up finishes, and a decade-long stranglehold on the award shared only with Messi. His final win came in 2017. Nobody else has been shortlisted more often.
- Lionel Messi – 17 nominations: Eight wins — a record that may never be broken. His first nomination came in 2006, and his most recent in 2026, at 39, when he dragged Argentina to another World Cup final almost by himself. He ranks second in nominations despite winning the thing more than anyone alive.
- Paolo Maldini – 13 nominations: Never won it, which is one of football's great injustices. Five European Cups with the only club he ever played for. Two third-place finishes (1994, 2003). The voters simply couldn't bring themselves to hand it to a defender.
- Johan Cruyff – 12 nominations: Three wins (1971, 1973, 1974) and nine further shortlist appearances. Ajax's dominance in that era is unthinkable without him, and his influence on how the modern game is played is still visible every weekend.
- Franz Beckenbauer – 12 nominations: Two wins, in 1972 and 1976. One of three men — alongside Mario Zagallo and Didier Deschamps — to win the World Cup as both player and manager. A centre-back who made the position look like art.
- Karim Benzema – 12 nominations: Spent years operating in Ronaldo's shadow at Real Madrid and still earned 12 nods. His 2022 win finally gave him the recognition his output had long demanded — and settled a debate that had been building for years.
- Zlatan Ibrahimović – 11 nominations: 24 years at the top, 405 league goals, and a fourth-place finish in 2013 as his personal ceiling. Sweden's player of the year ten consecutive times. The nominations were earned; the win never came.
- Gianluigi Buffon – 11 nominations: The most-nominated goalkeeper in the award's history. Finished second in 2006 after helping Italy lift the World Cup — behind his own captain, Fabio Cannavaro. The ceiling for a keeper in this award has always been frustratingly low.
- Zinedine Zidane – 11 nominations: World Cup winner in 1998, Euro winner in 2000, Ballon d'Or winner in 1998. Spent most of his peak years proving that elegance and effectiveness aren't mutually exclusive.
- Michel Platini – 11 nominations: Three consecutive Ballon d'Or wins from 1983 to 1985, then eight more nominations before retiring at 32. Juventus, France, Euro 1984 — a career that burned intensely and briefly.
- Eusébio – 11 nominations: The benchmark for Portuguese football before Ronaldo redefined what that meant. Won the award in 1965 on the back of Benfica's European success. Eleven nominations across a career that made him one of the most feared forwards of the 1960s.
What the List Actually Tells Us
The nominations record rewards longevity as much as peak quality. Maldini never won the award, but 13 nominations over the length of his career at AC Milan says more about his consistency than most winner's tallies do.
The Messi-Ronaldo era distorted everything around it. Between 2008 and 2017, the award went to one of them every single year. Both men's nomination counts reflect that dominance — but also the fact that no matter what you thought of either, the voters kept putting them both on the list, year after year, because the football demanded it.
For anyone tracking long-term award markets or legacy debates, the nominations column is an underused data point. Benzema's 12 nods — many of them earned while actively supporting Ronaldo rather than outshining him — is as strong an argument for his 2022 win as the goals themselves.
Ronaldo leads with 18. That record looks safe for a long time.
