Who was the best men’s footballer in 2025?

Another year is almost over, and many footballers’ years have come and gone.

Over the past year, BBC Sport has analyzed some of the best men’s game players, from emerging young talent to experienced older heads that demonstrate they have still got it.

This year, the England captain has had the best of his life and is still making money for Bayern Munich.

In 2025, the 32-year-old former Spurs striker has scored an incredible 60 goals for both clubs and nations.

Although Lamine Yamal is only 18 years old, it seems like he has been around a while because of how frequently he makes headlines for his standout performances.

He excelled for Spain last year when they won Euro 2024, and he has since increased to 2025.

In his previous 14 La Liga games this year, the teenager has seven goals and eight assists.

Ousmane Dembele started the year off with a fantastic start to 2025, scoring 15 goals in his first eight games along the way to his best-ever season of goalscoring, 35 goals in 53 games.

Erling Haaland, 25, has been incredibly talented in front of goal this season, so it takes a brave person to not have him in their fantasy Premier League team.

Cole Palmer has had a difficult season so far, but injury has limited his playing time. He was a key player for Chelsea last season and a standout player at this summer’s Club World Cup.

He assisted Chelsea’s return to the Champions League this year, assisted them in making the crucial assists in the Conference League final, and won the tournament player of the year award, outshining some of the biggest clubs and players in world football.

Players from Paris St-Germain would always dominate this list given that they had won the Treble.

Gianluigi Donnarumma, who left PSG for Manchester City in the summer, was recently named FIFA’s best male goalkeeper for 2025.

The Italian international was honored for his remarkable year, which included three domestic titles and the first-ever Champions League title with PSG.

One of the best midfielders in the world is Pedri, 23, who arguably enjoyed one of his best seasons of 2024 to 2025 as he helped Barcelona win the domestic treble.

He created 70 chances for his Barcelona team-mates last season, which included the top five European leagues in terms of recoveries (24) and showed he is one of the best chance creators in Europe (254).

Kylian Mbappe has scored 59 goals in all competitions this year for Real Madrid, which is a prolific year.

A defensive midfielder must be very, very good to be regarded as the best player in the world, but Vitinha, 25, has undoubtedly been very, very good in 2025 given the unglamorous nature of the role.