FIFA World Cup Golden Ball Award Winners: All the MVPs of World Cup

This is a list of all the Golden Ball Award winners at the FIFA World Cup.

Every four years, the world of football unites to witness the greatest spectacle in the sport – the FIFA World Cup.

This tournament crowns a nation as world champion. But that’s not all. It also recognizes individual brilliance through coveted awards.

One of the most coveted of these is the Golden Ball. It is an award presented to the player deemed to have had the most outstanding performance throughout the World Cup. In short, the MVP of the tournament gets the Golden Ball.

In this list, we’ll be going through the history of Golden Ball award winners in every World Cup tournament.

So let’s get started.

Check out the list of Golden Boot (Top scorers) winners in the World Cup here.

History of the Golden Ball Award

FIFA did not award a Golden Ball at the tournament for a long time. In fact, they did not start awarding the Golden Ball until the 1982 FIFA World Cup.

But still, there are recognized lists, like in the book book World Cup (1930-2010): A Statistical Summary, that help in determining the best players at the prior World Cup.

So how does FIFA determine the Golden Ball winner?

The process for choosing the Golden Ball winner involves two key steps.

First, the FIFA Technical Study Group (TSG), analyzes player performances throughout the World Cup.

They consider various factors like

individual skill,
influence on the team’s play,
consistency, and

overall impact on the tournament.

Based on their evaluation, they create a shortlist of players who they believe were the most outstanding.

Then, once the shortlist is finalized by the TSG, a group of media representatives cast their votes to determine the final winner.

List of Golden Ball Winners

Official Winners (Post 1982)

World Cup	Player	Country
1982	Paolo Rossi	Italy
1986	Diego Maradona	Argentina
1990	Salvatore Schillaci	Italy
1994	Romário	Brazil
1998	Ronaldo	Brazil
2002	Oliver Kahn	Germany
2006	Zinedine Zidane	France
2010	Diego Forlán	Uruguay
2014	Lionel Messi	Argentina
2018	Luka Modrić	Croatia
2022	Lionel Messi	Argentina

Unofficial Golden Ball Winners (1930 – 1978)

World Cup	Player	Country
1930	José Nasazzi	Uruguay
1934	Giuseppe Meazza	Italy
1938	Leônidas	Brazil
1950	Zizinho	Brazil
1954	Ferenc Puskás	Hungary
1958	Didi	Brazil
1962	Garrincha	Brazil
1966	Bobby Charlton	England
1970	Pele	Brazil
1974	Johan Cruyff	Netherlands
1978	Mario Kempes	Argentina

List of FIFA World Cup Golden Ball winners

Interesting Fact: Lionel Messi is the only player to win the Golden Ball award twice.

Check out other interesting World Cup facts here.

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