Raphinha could hardly have chosen a better way to make the 2026 Ballon d'Or shortlist look awkward. Less than two weeks after the 30 nominees were announced without his name, the Barcelona captain scored a hat-trick in a 3-1 win at Sevilla, taking his remarkable start to the new La Liga season to 12 goals in seven matches. Only Cristiano Ronaldo has scored more after seven rounds of a La Liga campaign in the 21st century.
The reaction was predictable. Sevilla coach Luis García Plaza questioned how a player performing at that level had failed to make the Ballon d'Or list, while Raphinha's omission had already been identified as one of the biggest surprises when the nominees were announced on September 8.
The important detail, however, is that Raphinha's extraordinary September form has nothing to do with the 2026 award. The Ballon d'Or voting period had already closed before the current season began, so the performances now driving the debate will count towards the next cycle rather than changing the shortlist announced this month.
There is no official reason for Raphinha's omission
France Football does not publish explanations for individual players who miss the 30-man shortlist, and there is no official ranking of those who finished just outside it. We therefore do not know whether Raphinha was close to selection or whether the panel simply considered 30 other seasons stronger.
What we do know is exactly what the judges were assessing. The 2026 Ballon d'Or covers performances between August 3, 2025 and July 19, 2026, including club competitions, the World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations. France Football lists individual performance as the primary criterion, followed by collective achievements and trophies, then class and fair play.
That distinction matters because Raphinha's 2025/26 campaign was very different from the one he is producing now. He remained one of Barcelona's most productive attackers, but injuries repeatedly interrupted his season and prevented him from building the same momentum he had enjoyed a year earlier.
His numbers were good, but the season was fragmented
Raphinha still scored 21 goals in 33 official appearances for Barcelona in 2025/26, finishing level with Ferran Torres and behind only Lamine Yamal among the club's leading scorers. Barcelona's own records describe him as one of the team's main attacking figures despite missing a significant part of the campaign through injury.
Those numbers would normally put a player firmly in the Ballon d'Or conversation, particularly because Barcelona won La Liga and Raphinha produced important performances in major matches. He was named MVP of the Spanish Super Cup final after scoring twice against Real Madrid, and by March he had already reached 19 goals and seven assists despite playing only 30 games at that stage of the season.
The problem was continuity. Raphinha had played 57 times and scored 34 goals during his outstanding 2024/25 campaign, which took him to fifth place in the 2025 Ballon d'Or voting. A year later he managed only 33 competitive appearances for Barcelona. The drop was not primarily about form when he was on the pitch; it was about how often he was able to stay there.
That is likely to have mattered when his season was compared with players who remained available throughout domestic title races, Champions League campaigns and the World Cup. It is a reasonable explanation for the omission, but it should not be presented as France Football's official reasoning because no such explanation has been released.
The World Cup offered no late boost
The timing of Raphinha's injuries became especially damaging during the World Cup. He played the full 90 minutes of Brazil's opening 1-1 draw with Morocco and started again against Haiti, but lasted only 39 minutes before suffering a muscle injury in his right hamstring. FIFA subsequently confirmed the injury, although he remained with the Brazil squad while receiving treatment.
Raphinha did not play again at the tournament. He finished the World Cup with 129 minutes, no goals and no assists, and was an unused squad member when Brazil were eliminated by Norway in the round of 16.
That was a significant missed opportunity in this particular Ballon d'Or cycle. The entire World Cup fell inside the reference period, giving candidates the chance to strengthen their case in the biggest international competition of the year. Raphinha was denied that opportunity just as Brazil entered the decisive stages.
Why his current goals do not count for the 2026 Ballon d’Or
This is where much of the current discussion becomes misleading. Raphinha now looks like one of the most dangerous forwards in Europe, but his performances against Sevilla and during Barcelona's perfect start to the new La Liga season came after July 19, when the 2026 Ballon d'Or assessment period ended.
The hat-trick at Sevilla therefore cannot make his omission retrospectively more or less justified under the award's rules. It can only make the decision look stranger to anyone judging the nominees by what they are seeing today rather than by what happened during 2025/26.
Raphinha's current numbers are certainly making that contrast harder to ignore. His 12 goals after seven league matches have already taken him beyond Lionel Messi's best scoring start at the same stage of a La Liga season this century, with only Ronaldo's 13 in 2014/15 ahead of him.
That form belongs to the next Ballon d'Or cycle, provided the same season-based format is maintained.
From fifth place to outside the top 30
The most striking part of the story may be how quickly Raphinha's Ballon d'Or position changed. His 34-goal 2024/25 campaign earned him fifth place in the 2025 voting, yet one year later he was not among the 30 nominees at all. Barcelona's official profile still highlights that fifth-place finish as part of the Brazilian's breakthrough under Hansi Flick.
There is an obvious football explanation for some of that decline. His 2025/26 season contained only 33 Barcelona appearances, he spent substantial periods unavailable and his World Cup effectively ended during Brazil's second match. At the same time, 21 club goals in 33 appearances hardly amount to a poor campaign, which is why his absence has attracted more attention than many of the other omissions.
The shortlist itself is also competitive by design. France Football's panel selects only 30 players before the international jury begins voting, so a strong season is not necessarily enough if the panel believes other candidates produced more complete campaigns across the same period.
Was Raphinha really snubbed?
Calling it a “snub” is understandable, particularly from a Barcelona perspective, but there is no objective cutoff that proves Raphinha should have been included. His scoring rate was excellent, Barcelona won La Liga and he produced several important performances, while his injury record and truncated World Cup worked heavily against him.
What makes the debate interesting now is the timing. The player absent from the 2026 Ballon d'Or shortlist has started the following season at a level that would make him extremely difficult to overlook if maintained. That does not rewrite his 2025/26 campaign, but it explains why his absence is being discussed again every time he scores.
For the 2026 award, the decision has already been made: Raphinha is not one of the 30 nominees. His 12 league goals since August belong to a different conversation, and if Barcelona's captain continues anywhere near this pace, that conversation will increasingly be about the 2027 Ballon d'Or rather than the shortlist he missed this year.
Published by Patrick Jane
20.09.2026