The best player in the world gets named tonight
Plus: how the Ballon d’Or (soccer's Global MVP award) actually works and the 3 players who have a chance of winning it
Pull up a stool. Tonight, in a theater in London, somebody gets handed a golden ball and becomes the officially recognized best player on the planet. On tap today:
🏆 The Ballon d'Or, explained: what it is, who votes, and who's lifting it tonight
⚽ Villa end Man City's perfect start, United lose 3-0 at home, and Mbappe settles the Clasico
🍵 Grabbing a mint tea with Lamine Yamal, who at 19 could become the youngest winner in the award's history
Let's tap in.
🥃 TOP SHELF
Lionel Messi has won a record 8 Ballon d’Ors - here’s his first back in 2009.
The best player alive gets decided tonight
At 8pm London time tonight (3pm Eastern), a theater called the London Palladium fills up with the best players on earth wearing suits worth more than my car.
One of them walks out holding the Ballon d'Or.
"Right, Joe. And that is?"
The award for the best soccer player in the world. One player, one trophy, decided once a year.
Closest thing I can give you is an MVP award, except the voters are scattered across a hundred countries and the candidate pool is every professional on earth.
How you actually win the thing
A hundred journalists vote, one from each of the hundred highest ranked nations. They get handed a shortlist of 30 players and rank their top ten.
They're asked to weigh three things: what the player did on their own, what their team won, and a wonderfully vague category called class and fair play.
One detail that trips people up. It covers a season, not a calendar year. This one runs August 2025 to the end of July 2026, which means last summer's World Cup is baked straight into the vote.
The 3 names at the bar
Harry Kane, 33, England's captain, plays for Bayern Munich in Germany. He was involved in 81 goals last season, a number that frankly looks like a typo. He's the bookmakers' favorite and would be the first Englishman to win it since Michael Owen in 2001.
Lamine Yamal, 19, Barcelona. Finished runner-up last year. Win tonight and he's the youngest winner in the 70 year history of the award. Spain have not lost a game in over four years, and that run started around the time a teenager started playing on their right wing.
Kylian Mbappe, Real Madrid and France. Top scorer at the World Cup, top scorer in the Champions League, top scorer in Spain. Won nothing. Then last night he scored twice to beat Barcelona in the Clasico, roughly 24 hours before the envelopes get opened.
"That timing is a bit convenient, Joe..."
Don’t worry. The votes were counted weeks ago. He just enjoys an entrance.
The sulk that finally ended
You might be surprised to hear that Real Madrid skipped the last two ceremonies entirely.
Back in 2024 their forward Vinicius Junior was widely expected to win, lost out to Manchester City's Rodri, and the club decided the whole exercise was stitched up against them. Nobody traveled. They did the same again last year.
Tonight they're back in the room, with Mbappe leading the delegation.
Funny how a strong personal campaign can soften a principle.
It's not one trophy, it's thirteen
The men's award is the headline, but the night runs through a full card.
There's the women's Ballon d'Or, where Spain's Alexia Putellas is favored, partly because three-time defending winner Aitana Bonmati is out with a leg injury.
Then the Yashin Trophy for the best goalkeeper, the Kopa Trophy for the best young player, coach and club awards, and the Socrates Award for a player doing good away from the game.
Why London?
This is the 70th edition and the first one ever staged in England.
That's on purpose. The very first Ballon d'Or in 1956 went to Stanley Matthews of Blackpool, an English winger who was 41 at the time and still leaving defenders on the floor.
⏰ TLDR: A hundred journalists have already voted on the best player in the world for the 2025-26 season, and we find out tonight. Kane has the numbers, Yamal would be the youngest winner ever, Mbappe has the goals but no medals. Real Madrid are showing up for the first time in three years.
PS: just before this edition landed in your inbox, three winners articles were accidentally published on the Ballon d’Or website - for the three names you see above.
So could someone other than Harry, Lamine or Kylian win it? Sure - when The Tap-Inn runs dry of Guinness and Jameson on the same night.
🗣️ SOUND LIKE A REGULAR
“Cup-tied”
/ˈkʌp ˌtaɪd/ 🔊
noun · soccer
Definition: When a player can't play for their new club in a cup competition, because they already played in that same cup for a different club earlier in the season. Doesn't matter what the club paid for him.
Origin: The phrase is as literal as it sounds. Play once in a cup for one team and you are tied to that team in that cup for the rest of the season. It stops wealthy clubs buying their way through a knockout round halfway through it.
USED IN A SENTENCE
“Course he's not playing Tuesday. He turned out in the cup for his old lot back in August, so he's cup-tied. Forty million euros, sat in the stands, in a tracksuit, eating a sandwich.”
🗞️ THE WEEKLY TAP-IN…
Man United’s Michael Carrick waving to the fans, quite possibly for the last time.
Premier League recap: matchweek 8
Eight games into a 38 game season and the top of the table just got interesting. Manchester City had won every single match. Now they haven't. Arsenal have caught them. And at the other end, Manchester United are 16th.
Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester City: City arrived in Birmingham having won seven out of seven and left having lost. Nicolas Jackson scored inside six minutes and then again on the hour, with Erling Haaland's header in between the only thing City had to show for 63% of the ball. Villa sat deep, defended their box and counterattacked, which is the oldest plan in the game and still works.
Manchester United 0-3 Bournemouth: This is the one. United had 62% possession at Old Trafford, took 15 shots, hit the target three times and lost by three at home to a club whose stadium holds 12,357 people. Rayan and Marcus Tavernier scored five minutes apart before halftime, Evanilson added a third after the break, and the pressure on manager Michael Carrick is now very real. One win in eight. Three points above the relegation places.
"Three points above the what now, Joe?"
The bottom three go down to the league below at the end of the season. For Manchester United, a club with 20 league titles, that is not a conversation anyone expected to be having in October. Elsewhere…
Chelsea 0-2 Tottenham: A London derby at Stamford Bridge, and Spurs took it. Chelsea's Cole Palmer picked up a second yellow card and was sent off, leaving ten men to chase it, and Mathys Tel's second goal finished the job. Spurs had lost three of their previous six, so this one goes in the memory bank.
Arsenal 2-0 Everton: Ezri Konsa opened it, Gabriel headed the second, and Arsenal are now level with City on 21 points. Mikel Arteta's side have won seven of eight.
Liverpool 2-0 Brighton: Florian Wirtz's deflected shot broke the deadlock and Bradley Barcola teed up Alexander Isak for the second. Liverpool had drawn three of their first seven and badly needed a clean afternoon.
The rest: Ipswich 1-1 Nottingham Forest, Coventry 0-1 Fulham where Oscar Bobb scored the only goal, Crystal Palace 0-2 Newcastle with William Osula opening, Hull 1-1 Brentford saw Oli McBurnie's penalty cancelled out by Dango Ouattara, Sunderland 0-0 Leeds. Full table here.
If you know about one rivalry in world soccer, make it this one
El Clasico the name given to the games between Spain's two superclubs. The latest edition? Barcelona 1-2 Real Madrid, Sunday night, at Barcelona's Camp Nou.
Kylian Mbappe scored in the 41st minute and again in the 87th. Raphinha had equalized for Barcelona in between. Mbappe's second was his 100th goal for Real Madrid.
Full highlights here. It’s up not even 24 hours and has already racked up 11m views. Catch it while it’s hot.
Two things worth knowing about this El Clasico in particular:
Barcelona had won nine of their first ten games, and a win would have given them the best start any team has made to a Spanish season since Real Madrid in 1968. Instead they lost, and Madrid are now just three points back.
The man on the Madrid bench is Jose Mourinho, who managed the club between 2010 and 2013, left on bad terms, spent a decade elsewhere and is now back. This was his first Clasico win second time around. He celebrated with a knee slide. He is 63.
Never change, Jose.
Midweek: the EFL Cup fourth round
The league pauses on Tuesday for the EFL Cup aka The Carabao Cup, England's second knockout competition, known as the Carabao Cup after the energy drink that sponsors it. Sixteen teams left, one night each, lose and you're out.
Fleetwood Town vs Arsenal, Tuesday. Fleetwood play in the fourth tier and have never been this far in the competition's history. Arsenal are top of the Premier League. This is the one you watch hoping for a mess.
Liverpool vs Chelsea, Wednesday at Anfield. The pick of the round. Chelsea's manager Xabi Alonso played for Liverpool for five years and won a Champions League there, so expect the Anfield crowd to be warm right up until kickoff.
Manchester City vs Brighton, Wednesday. City are the holders. Brighton have already knocked Manchester United out of this competition once this season.
Also on: Bradford City vs Peterborough, which guarantees a third-tier club in the quarterfinals, Bournemouth vs Aston Villa, Fulham vs Crystal Palace, Sunderland vs Brentford, Everton vs Newcastle on Thursday. Full fixture list.
The quarterfinal draw happens live on Wednesday night, straight after Liverpool and Chelsea finish.
🍻 HAVE A 0% BEER WITH…
Looking dapper, Mr Yamal.
Lamine Yamal
Club and country: Barcelona and Spain
What to watch for tonight: He's up for two prizes, the Ballon d'Or itself and the Kopa Trophy for the best young player in the world. Win the big one and he's the youngest winner in its 70 year history. He finished runner-up last year, which at 18 is a faintly ridiculous sentence to have to type.
Fact: At 17 he became the youngest player ever to score in and then win a major international tournament, taking that record off Pelé. He scored one of the goal’s of the tournament while he was at it as well. Spain haven't lost a game in over four years, which is roughly how long he's been in the team.
Toast: No beer for this one. Yamal has said publicly that he doesn't drink and never will, so he gets a pot of Moroccan mint tea instead, a nod to his dad's side of the family. Back in February I joked I'd have to check his ID first. Turns out it was never going to matter.
Follow him here: @lamineyamal
🔥 HOUSE SPECIALS
⚽ Goal of the week: Evanilson's strike off a loose ball to put Bournemouth 3-0 up at Old Trafford, in front of 74,000 people who went very quiet.
🎉 Fanzone: This tweet, “One of the most powerful videos I’ve ever seen as a United supporter.” Old Trafford sang coach Michael Carrick's name as he walked off after the 3-0 loss, then instantly switched to boos for the players the second he disappeared down the tunnel.
📅 On this day: October 26, 1863, eleven clubs met in a London pub called the Freemasons' Tavern and founded the Football Association. Football there means soccer, and yes, the sport was invented in a bar. 163 years ago today.
🐶 Underdog corner: Vozinha, the 40 year old Cape Verde goalkeeper who had no club at all during the World Cup, is up for best goalkeeper in the world tonight alongside Courtois and Raya.
👕 Wardrobe watch: Germany released a black and gold farewell third kit, the last shirt Adidas will ever make for them before Nike takes over the national team in 2027.
🔗 Most clicked from Friday: Eze and Rice scoring at Bayern Munich to rescue Arsenal a 2-2 draw in the Champions League.
That’s all, folks. Sláinte.