AI Predicts 2025 Ballon d'Or Winner: Shock Favorite Emerges
AI Predicts 2025 Ballon d'Or Winner: Shock Favorite Emerges
A new AI powered forecast's revealed the latest projections for the 2025 Ballon d'or and the results are nothing short of surprising.
Who'll Win the Golden Ball?
According to football analytics platform Score 90, the battle for this year's Ballon d'or awarded annually by France Football is now down to two names only:
Ousmane Dembele (Paris Saint Germain)
Lamine Yamal (Barcelona)
The AI model gave Dembele dominant 63% chance of lifting the prestigious trophy, far ahead of rising Spanish star Yamal who holds just 13%. All other top contenders have reportedly been eliminated from the statistical race.
Ballon d'Or Ceremony Details
France Football's officially announced that the 2025 Ballon d'Or gala will take place on Monday 22 Sep, in Paris. The event will be attended by global football icons, celebrities and international media.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
☕️🥐FC Ptit Déj: Ligue 1 stadium rankings, FC 26 Career Mode news
FC 26: New Features in Career Mode 🎮 While waiting to unveil the new facets of Ultimate Team, Electronic Arts has detailed the new features of the highly acclaimed Career Mode in EA FC 26. Ligue 1 Stadium Ranking 🏟️ a website specializing in stadiums, has established a ranking of the stadiums that will host Ligue 1 matches for the 2025-26 season. The Vélodrome is the big winner of this top 18. Flashback of the Day 📸 Announced with insistence at Liverpool, Alexander Isak could meet an old acquaintance from the Dutch championship. At the time (February 2019), a certain Slot was assistant coach at AZ Alkmaar and Isak was at Willem II. OM Presents its Star Signing 🎬 The most expensive recruit in the history of Olympique de Marseille (35 million euros) told the story of his arrival on the Canebière. Piece. Yesterday's Must-See Stories 🔍 - Ligue 1: a week with a European focus for elite clubs - The ultimate XI of Brazilians who have played in L1 - Who will be the penalty taker at Real Madrid this season? This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here. 📸 AFP
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
🚨Gianni Infantino breaks silence on threats to Katia Itzel
Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, broke his silence regarding the death threats received by Mexican referee Katia Itzel after her participation in the Rayados - Cincinnati Leagues Cup. "I am appalled and saddened by the threats against referee Katia Itzel following her performance in the First Round matches of the Leagues Cup, last weekend". "As I have already said, without referees there is no football, so we must protect them and respect their role in our sport. In football and in society there is no room for abuse, discrimination or violence of any kind". "At FIFA we stand in solidarity with the Mexican Football Federation and Concacaf to condemn the actions of those who make these unacceptable threats. We offer our unconditional support to hold those responsible accountable," he mentioned. In Mexico, the FMF offered support and accompaniment to the referee during the complaint process, while clubs like Juárez and Rayados condemned the events This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here. 📸 Leopoldo Smith - 2024 Getty Images
New York Times
39 minutes ago
- New York Times
Dan Ndoye: Nottingham Forest forward with gifts for fans, who ‘took stairs' to top of game
If you see Dan Ndoye driving around Nottingham, he might have a gift for you. When the Swiss winger was at Bologna, he would often keep a few club shirts, with his name and number on the back, in the glove box of his car as a potential keepsake for any fans he encountered. He would, naturally, have a pen handy for autographs, too. Advertisement A confident young man, then. But one thing that came up with every person The Athletic spoke to about Nottingham Forest's record signing is his friendly personality, so the stashing of ready-to-go merch reflects his effusive nature, rather than any sort of presumptive arrogance. The deal taking Ndoye to Forest was complicated by competition from Napoli and Juventus, and Bologna driving a tough bargain for their star winger, who eventually cost £35million ($47.5m). Eventually crawling over the line in the last week of July, the move had been in the ether for a year. Ndoye was offered to Forest in 2024 for around £25million, but they were not in a financial position to make the move. He had only been with Bologna for one season, scoring a single goal, but after some breakout performances at Euro 2024 with Switzerland and a Serie A campaign in which he found the net nine times, including the winner in the Coppa Italia final, he is a much more rounded player. From his perspective, too, last summer might not have been the right time to make the move. He has always been cautious about planning his career, looking for the next level but recognising it is better to take relatively small steps and play regularly to develop and improve, rather than go for bigger leaps and get lost in the shuffle. That partly informed the 24-year-old's decision to choose Forest: he could have gone to the reigning Serie A champions in Napoli, or Italian giants Juventus, where he would have played in the Champions League, but he has always wanted to play in the Premier League. Ndoye views Forest as the perfect size: big enough to be competitive, but not so established that his development could be stunted. He could have been in England much earlier than this. Arsenal, Manchester City and Southampton were among the clubs who looked at Ndoye when he was in the youth system of his first club, Lausanne-Sport, who competed in Switzerland's second-tier Challenge League. Interestingly, Forest's current chief football officer, Ross Wilson, was Southampton's director of football operations at the time. Advertisement Ndoye's game improved significantly at Bologna under Thiago Motta and, last season, Vincenzo Italiano, who made him a much more clinical finisher. 'Last year (with Thiago Motta) I rarely went looking for goal,' he told Gazzetta Dello Sport in May. 'Motta asked me to stay out wide more. Italiano granted me more freedom, the chance to score and to attack the box more.' Earlier in his career, one of the most influential figures was Sebastien Bichard, who coached him as a youngster at Lausanne. 'I remember very well this young, frail 12-year-old boy,' Bichard tells The Athletic, when asked about his memories of the first time he saw Ndoye play. 'He was already a very good dribbler and a fast one. What was already magnificent about him was his passion for the game, for the ball, for football. I immediately noticed his ability to play with his body, to outwit the opponent with the ball at his feet. There was something rare about him.' Bichard was particularly influential during a strange period in 2020 — for all of us, but Ndoye in particular. He had agreed a move from Lausanne to Nice (two clubs owned by Jim Ratcliffe's INEOS), but remained in Switzerland on loan for the remainder of the 2019-20 season, the plan being to move that summer. Then Covid-19 hit, and there was no football in the Swiss second tier for four months: not ideal for anyone, but particularly not for a player who had a new club to impress. Ndoye had to stay sharp somehow, and that's where Bichard came in. 'We met very early in the morning to do individualised training sessions on a very difficult village pitch, hidden from view, to prepare for his future move to Nice.' That move to Nice didn't go to plan. There was a gap of just three weeks between the fragmented season in Switzerland and the start of the new one in France. He began with some promise, but only started three games in Ligue 1. He was only 21 but already in danger of stagnating. Advertisement The following summer, he moved on loan to Swiss Super League side Basel, where his career was reinvigorated. He worked with Patrick Rahmen, who would later coach him for the Switzerland Under-21s, and his job was to restore Ndoye's confidence. 'That was key to his development under me and his subsequent coaches,' Rahmen tells The Athletic. 'When he felt that we were counting on him, he could develop game by game and find his confidence.' At Basel, he became a key part of the team quickly, and after a season on loan, the move was made permanent. 'He realised that he could be a difference-maker at a higher level,' says Rahmen, 'but his performances weren't consistent at first. Accordingly, it was a process for him to develop as a player at a club where he received a lot of trust from me and the coaching staff. He then put this into practice, both at the club and with the national team.' His progress wasn't linear. Rahmen remembers a conversation they had before a game against Spain's under-21s in 2023. Ndoye's confidence had dipped again after a long spell without a goal or assist. 'We had a long personal conversation where we talked about pressure and how to deal with his own expectations,' says Rahmen. 'We discussed it in detail and broke it down so that he could forget all the pressure for this game and simply look forward to the game and play without worry. He implemented this brilliantly and played an outstanding game, scoring a goal.' Ndoye's progression was bumpy at times, perhaps explaining his self-critical side. He analyses his performances independently of the work his clubs have done and replays matches on the same day. He looks for mistakes and areas of improvement. He has spoken about not getting much sleep some nights after studying a game particularly closely. 'It's also important to know that Dan had an atypical career path,' says Bichard. 'He wasn't always recognised for his true worth — he earned his first Swiss youth cap at the under-18 level. Advertisement 'He has a great capacity for work, is a good listener, and is ready to never give up. He now performs at a high level, as he did when he was younger, but with much more consistency and effectiveness today.' Or, as his father, Saliou, put it, speaking to Swiss outlet 24 Heures: 'Some people take the elevator and everything falls into their hands very quickly, they are propelled to the top while still very young. Dan, on the other hand, took the stairs. He is where he is because of his work.' Ndoye is extremely family-oriented. 'A career has its ups and downs,' Ndoye told 24 Heures. 'A player's mental state accounts for 70 per cent or 80 per cent of their performance. I have a mental coach who helped me a lot when I was younger with concentration issues. But nothing replaces family. It's a necessity.' Saliou is from Senegal and was a decent amateur player in his day (as a smooth attacking midfielder, he picked up the nickname 'Platini'), and now splits his time between Switzerland and a real estate business in his homeland. His mother, Virginie, is Swiss and he has two younger siblings: a brother, Issa, and a sister named Eva. Issa is a photographer and videographer who made a glossy social media clip charting Ndoye's journey to Nottingham, while Eva studied at university in America last year. Virginie missed the start of Euro 2024, where Ndoye played for Switzerland, to attend her graduation. Both were with him as he completed the formalities of his move to Forest. A post shared by Dan Ndoye 🦁 (@danndoye10) Throughout his career, some combination of his immediate family members have usually lived with or near him, moving to Nice then Basel then Bologna. While they won't be moving en masse to Nottingham, they always try to ensure a couple of them are close by at any one time. 'They provide the balance Dan needs,' says Bichard. One family member who will be joining Ndoye more permanently in Nottingham is Alpha, the husky that Eva persuaded him to get a few years ago. 'A life without Alpha is unimaginable for me,' Ndoye told Blick this year. 'She gives me a lot of love and takes my mind off things when I'm out walking or lying on the couch, which helps me enormously, especially after games.' Advertisement As for slightly less furry friends, he is still close to former Bologna team-mates Joshua Zirkzee — the Manchester United forward with whom he plays Call of Duty online — and Riccardo Calafiori, now of Arsenal. Bologna's scouts went to watch Ndoye play for Basel, and while there, were also impressed by Calafiori (who they also already knew about), signing them both in 2023. Nottingham Ndoye also asked Remo Freuler, Bologna's Swiss midfielder who played for Forest, about the move to Nottingham, and was told only good things about the club. His signature goal celebration — showing his 'claws' and growling like a big cat — stems from his family and his childhood. 'Since I was a child, my parents have compared me to a lion,' he said last year. 'They often say that the Senegalese players are the Lions of Teranga. So it was just a little reference to my second nationality.' Ndoye has big boots to fill, having been signed shortly after the sale of Anthony Elanga to Newcastle United. But if Forest fans keep seeing that celebration, there will be plenty of takers for one of those shirts, signed and fresh from the glove box.
