Women's Ballon d'Or 2026: Lionesses in profile

Lionesses striker Alessia Russo and defender Alex Greenwood are in the running for the main women’s award after being placed on a 30-strong shortlist, while Hannah Hampton is among the ten players in contention for the Goalkeeper of the Year award which she picked up in 2025.

And ahead of the Ballon d’Or Ceremony on Monday 26 October, which will be held in London to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the prestigious awards, we’ve taken a look at how the 2025-26 season progressed for the three nominees

Alex Greenwood

Greenwood enjoyed a strong campaign in 2025–26, arguably one of the best of her career. She began it fresh from becoming a European champion with England at UEFA EURO 2025 and ended it as a WSL champion with Manchester City, while also demonstrating that her value now goes well beyond simply defending.

Captaining City to land her first WSL title, Greenwood showed her worth at both ends of the pitch by providing five assists over the course of the season from corners, which was more than twice as many as any other player in the WSL.

On the international front, she remained one of Sarina Wiegman’s key players through the season and ended the campaign with a total of 111 caps.

And with the Lionesses now aiming to seal their place at next summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil over the autumn, Greenwood will approach the new campaign with confidence.

Alessia Russo

Last season saw the Lionesses and Arenal striker nudge her way into the list of England women’s top-ten goalscorers, coming on the back of last summer’s UEFA EURO 2025 success in Switzerland.

She scored twice against Ukraine in March 2026, before she bagged the winner in a 1–0 victory over Iceland in Reykjavík the following month, which was her 30th senior international goal.

At domestic level, Russo’s campaign saw her finish the club season with Arsenal with an impressive 22 goals and eight assists in the WSL and Champions League combined.

Hannnah Hampton

The 2025-26 season was a campaign of consolidation for Hampton with both England and Chelsea following her breakthrough in the previous term.

After winning the inaugural Women’s Goalkeeper award at the 2025 Ballon d’Or Ceremony in Paris on the back of her performances at UEFA EURO 2025, by April 2026 she‘d reached 27 caps for England and firmly established herself as Wiegman's first-choice goalkeeper.

Meanwhile with Chelsea, Hampton remained an important part of a side chasing success on multiple fronts and made 26 appearances in all competitions, keeping ten clean sheets,

If 2024–25 was the season in which Hampton established herself as one of the world’s best emerging young goalkeepers, 2025–26 was the term in which she proved she could carry the responsibility of being England's goalkeeper on the biggest stage.

Now that the nominees are announced, an international jury of specialised journalists will cast their votes.

The panel consists of one representative per country from the top 100 nations in the FIFA Men's World Ranking and the top 50 in the Women's World Ranking.

Each voter will select their top choices based on three established criteria: individual and decisive performance, collective achievements and trophies won, and class and fair play on and off the pitch.

Using these metrics, each voting journalist selects and ranks ten players from the shortlist, assigning 15 points for their first choice, down to a single point for their tenth.

The accumulated points will determine who takes home the prestigious trophies at the ceremony on 26 October.

Good luck to all of our nominees!