Matthäus's case for Harry Kane

The argument, stripped down

Matthäus isn't picking Kane because he's the flashiest name on the shortlist. His case is built almost entirely on collective success layered on top of individual output: a Bundesliga title, a DFB Pokal, a Champions League semi-final with Bayern Munich, and a third-place finish at the World Cup with England. Add to that a level of consistency across every competition Kane played in, and you get a player who, in Matthäus's framing, never had a quiet campaign. No trophy drought, no disappearing act in the business end of the season.

That's a specific kind of Ballon d'Or logic. The award has swung over the years between rewarding pure individual brilliance, think a player inventing goals nobody else could score, and rewarding the player who was most indispensable to teams that actually won things. Matthäus is arguing firmly for the second version, and Kane's season gives him plenty to point at.

Why this actually has legs

Kane's career has long been defined by an odd gap: individually brilliant for the best part of a decade, but starved of team silverware for most of it at Tottenham. That gap is exactly what closed this year. Winning a Bundesliga title and a domestic cup with Bayern removes the one argument that always got used against him, that he was a brilliant striker who never won anything. Reach a Champions League semi-final on top of that and you've ticked every major team box available outside the trophy itself.

Then there's the World Cup element. Reaching the semi-finals or better with England, and Kane doing it as captain and senior figure rather than a bystander, plays into the leadership angle Matthäus leans on. Voters for individual awards have historically rewarded players who show up at international tournaments, not just in a good club season. A World Cup run adds weight that a purely domestic season, however good, doesn't carry on its own.

Where the case gets tested

The honest counter isn't that Matthäus is wrong about Kane's season, it's that the 2026 shortlist isn't short of players who can point to something similar. Rodri went from Manchester City's Champions League and treble-winning midfield to the 2024 Ballon d'Or and a Euro 2024 title with Spain, arguably the single most decorated individual resume in the conversation. Others on the list will have their own combination of league titles, continental runs and international tournaments to lean on. Ballon d'Or voting rarely comes down to one player having medals and everyone else having none, it comes down to whose medals carry the most weight in the room, and whose season people remember as the difference-making one rather than just the successful one.

Matthäus's point about character and ambassadorial value is also worth taking at face value rather than dismissing as filler. Voting panels, made up largely of journalists and former players, have shown before that off-field reputation and how a player represents the game can nudge a close call. It won't win Kane the award on its own, but in a field this stacked it can be the tiebreaker.

The verdict

Kane's case is real, not sentimental. He spent a career being told he needed team silverware to be considered among the very best, and this season he collected almost the full set in one go while still scoring at his usual rate. Whether that's enough to beat a reigning Ballon d'Or holder with a similarly loaded resume is a genuinely close call. Matthäus isn't making a sentimental pick. He's making the argument that consistency across every competition, at both club and country, should outweigh a single spectacular peak. It's a defensible view. It just isn't the only one in the room.