The Ballon d'Or 2025 highlighted a disturbing trend for Italian football. If Gianluigi Donnarumma won the Yachine Trophy for the second time in his career, rewarding the best goalkeeper in the world, and even hoisted himself in ninth place in the Golden Ball classification, he was above all the tree hiding the forest. Apart from the former PSG Garden and current Manchester City porter, no transalpine representative shone at the Châtelet Theater. The ceremony has stressed how Italy is now struggling to bring out talents capable of competing with Spanish, French or English jerseys, both in young people and in the queen category. Despite some appearances in the female categories (Cristiana Girelli and Sofia Cantore), Italy was discreet, even the big Italian media preferred to cover the Napoli-Pise (3-2) match that the Golden Ball ceremony. Like the great leaders of Serie A clubs, media invisible in Châtelet on Monday.
The absence of Italians in the Kopa (best player under the age of 21) and Cruyff (best coach) categories has strengthened this observation. Where other nations multiply young prodigies like Lamine Yamal for Spain, desired gifted for France, Esteãvo for Brazil, Florian Wirtz for Germany or Cole Palmer for England, Squadra Azzurra has no name on the short-list. If Enzo Maresca and Antonio Conte are anecdotal named in a battle lost in advance in front of Luis Enrique, the school of Italian coaches suffered from the end of the epic of Carlo Ancelotti in Real Madrid. This scarcity translates, not only a deficit in training of offensive stars, but also an Italian football which is still massively based on its veterans or on foreign players to radiate on the European scene, as evidenced by the classification of Dutch Denzel Dumfries, and the Ecossais Scott McTominay, the only players of Serie A present in the top 30 of the Ballon.
Italy almost absent from the ceremony
The paradox is all the more blatant since Inter Milan has reached the Champions 2025 League final against PSG. However, this collective performance did not result in a strong individual presence during the ceremony. The figures of the Lombard club, with the exception of a few foreign defenders, remained in the shadow of French, Spanish or Portuguese stars. This lack of Italian headliners contrasts with the golden age when players like Paolo Maldini, Andrea Pirlo, Alessandro del Piero or Fabio Cannavaro trusted appointments and podiums. And if they were not Italian, these stars were at least in large stables of Serie A. The presence of the Turkish nugget, Kenan Yıldız, of Juventus does not really change this glaring impression on Italian football.
In this depressed landscape, Donnarumma appeared as the last symbol of a prestigious Italian school, but down. His coronation with the Yachine trophy, handed over by the legend Gianluigi Buffon, saves the honor of a country in search of benchmarks, he who was long synonymous with tactical rigor, defensive elegance and exceptional guards. His triumph does not erase the impression of transalpine football in search of renewal. Italy needs iconic figures, homemade offensive talents and a coherent project to return to the top of these international ceremonies which, this year, had everything of an evening without Italy, except for a goalkeeper who has become a national hero. And as if that were not enough, with this historic victory of Ousmane Dembélé, the PSG player becomes the sixth French in history to win the most coveted individual trophy, allowing his country to overcome Italy in terms of the number of distinct players rewarded.
