In July, Harry Kane stood at the London Palladium with the Ballon d’Or in his hands. By November, he had been left out of a team selected by his own peers.
The gap between those two moments is the story of the 2025/26 season — and the question it raises is uncomfortable for a 32-year-old striker who has spent his career proving people wrong.
The Season That Should Have Settled Everything
The numbers from Kane’s campaign with Bayern Munich are not the numbers of a fading forward.
Sixty-one goals in 51 appearances. A domestic league and cup double. Take international duty into account and the tally climbs to 73 before he collected the Ballon d’Or at the 70th edition of the ceremony.
He scored six goals at the World Cup, where England reached the semi-finals, and became the first Englishman to win the individual award since Michael Owen in 2001.
By any reasonable measure, this was the greatest season of his career.
The Vote That Told a Different Story
Then came Monday’s FIFPRO Men’s World XI announcement.
Kane finished fifth among attackers with 27.6 per cent of the vote, behind Kylian Mbappé on 46 per cent, Lamine Yamal on 37.4 per cent, Lionel Messi on 29.5 per cent and Erling Haaland on 28.4 per cent.
With four attacking slots, fifth place meant omission.
It made Kane the first reigning Ballon d’Or winner to miss the FIFPRO World XI since the award began in 2005 — a record that had survived 21 years without exception.
Football transfer expert Fabrizio Romano flagged the result on X on Monday, November 9, as the football world tried to make sense of it.
The Precedent That Makes It Stranger
What sharpens the snub is what happened in 2020.
That year, the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the Ballon d’Or ceremony, but Messi was still included in the FIFPRO World XI — he retained his status as reigning winner from the previous edition, and the voters kept him in.
Kane had no such reprieve. He won the award, and was still left out.
The Others Who Missed
Kane was not alone. Goalkeepers Thibaut Courtois and Emiliano Martínez were overlooked. So were defenders Virgil van Dijk, Gabriel Magalhães, William Saliba, Marc Cucurella and Dayot Upamecano.
In midfield, Bruno Fernandes, Enzo Fernández, Pedri and Declan Rice missed out. In attack, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Michael Olise and Cristiano Ronaldo were also absent.
But none of those omissions carried the same weight as Kane’s.
So Are the Glory Days Over?
The temptation is to read the FIFPRO snub as a verdict on Kane’s career. That reading would be wrong.
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The FIFPRO World XI is voted by 19,806 professional footballers — a peer-recognition award, not a career assessment. It reflects who players think were the best in a given window, and voters clearly favoured the younger, faster, more explosive names.
What the vote reveals is not that Kane has declined. It is that the game’s centre of gravity has shifted — toward Mbappé, Yamal, Haaland, and the next generation.
Kane’s response will be the interesting part. He has spent a career scoring goals when people expected him to stop. The Ballon d’Or was supposed to be the crowning proof. Instead, it came with a reminder that even the best seasons do not guarantee recognition from your peers.
At 32, with a contract at Bayern until 2029, the glory days are not behind him. But the era in which he could win everything and still be taken for granted may be ending.
And that, more than any vote, is the story worth watching.