FIFA World Cup Golden Ball Winners: The Complete List

Sports Illustrated revisits World Cup soccer history by listing each Golden Ball winner in the men’s tournament history.

The FIFA World Cup brings together the best soccer talent from around the globe. But only one can stand above the rest.

The men’s World Cup first took place in 1930, but the inception of the Golden Ball—given to the best individual player for the entire tournament—didn’t take place until 1982. The winner is chosen by members of the media, who vote for a winner from a list of candidates selected by FIFA’s technical committee. The second- and third-place finishers are awarded the Silver Ball and Bronze Ball, respectively.

The award does not always go to a player from the championship-winning team—in fact, more often than not, it doesn’t. To date, 10 Golden Ball prizes have been awarded, with just three playing for the tournament champion.

Croatia’s Luka Modrić won the award in 2018, the most recent iteration of the event. Check out the full list of winners below.

World Cup	Golden Ball	Silver Ball	Bronze Ball
1982 Spain	Paolo Rossi (Italy)	Falcão (Brazil)	Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (West Germany)
1986 Mexico	Diego Maradona (Argentina)	Harald Schumacher (West Germany)	Preben Elkjær (Denmark)
1990 Italy	Salvatore Schillaci (Italy)	Lotah Matthäus (West Germany)	Diego Maradona (Argentina)
1994 United States	Romário (Brazil)	Roberto Baggio (Italy)	Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria)
1998 France	Ronaldo (Brazil)	Davor Šuker (Croatia)	Lilian Thuram (France)
2002 South Korea/Japan	Oliver Kahn (Germany)	Ronaldo (Brazil)	Hong Myung-bo (South Korea)
2006 Germany	Zinedine Zidane (France)	Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)	Andrea Pirlo (Italy)
2010 South Africa	Diego Forlán (Uruguay)	Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)	David Villa (Spain)
2014 Brazil	Lionel Messi (Argentina)	Thomas Müller (Germany)	Arjen Robben (Netherlands)
2018 Russia	Luka Modrić (Croatia)	Eden Hazard (Belgium)	Antoine Griezmann (France)

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