Rose Lavelle is the only American name on the 30-player shortlist for the 2026 Ballon d'Or, marking the second nomination of her career after she finished eighth in the 2019 voting. The Gotham FC and USWNT midfielder will find out where she stands when the award is handed out in London on October 26th, but the bigger question is whether an NWSL-based player can seriously compete for the top spot.
The judging window runs from August 3, 2025 to July 26, 2026, tracking the European soccer calendar rather than the NWSL's spring-to-fall schedule. That mismatch already puts Lavelle at a disadvantage against European-based rivals in terms of games played, visibility and even time zones for voters trying to watch her play.
What Lavelle Brings to the Table
Her resume for this window isn't thin. Lavelle helped Gotham FC win the 2025 NWSL Championship and the 2026 NWSL Challenge Cup, while also reaching the semifinals of the Concacaf W Champions Cup and the inaugural FIFA Women's Champions Cup. Across club and country she's made more than 40 appearances with 15 goals and five assists in the window.
Her signature moment might be the one voters remember most: a stunning game-winner in the 2025 NWSL Championship final that lifted Gotham to a 1-0 victory over the Washington Spirit.
How the Voting Actually Works
The Ballon d'Or is decided by a 50-person international jury of journalists, one from each of the top 50 nations in the FIFA World Rankings. Each journalist ranks 10 players from the shortlist, with points awarded on a sliding scale — 15 for first place down to one for tenth.
Because of how the FIFA rankings shake out, 27 of those 50 voters are based in Europe, and only 11 are in time zones across North, Central or South America and the Caribbean where they could easily catch NWSL matches live.
History Isn't on Lavelle's Side
The last five Ballon d'Or winners have all come from FC Barcelona — Aitana Bonmatí in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and Alexia Putellas in 2021 and 2022 — years in which Barcelona won the Champions League three times and finished runner-up twice. Spain's international success, including the 2023 World Cup title and a run to the 2025 Euros final, has only reinforced that dominance.
The only American to ever win the award is Megan Rapinoe, who took it in 2019 after leading the U.S. to the World Cup and finishing as the tournament's top scorer. Lavelle scored in that World Cup final and placed eighth in the voting that year.
So What's Realistic for Lavelle?
The honest assessment is that Lavelle probably won't crack the top three, or even the top ten. No NWSL-based player without a major international tournament run has ever finished higher than 13th — a mark set by Alex Morgan in 2022. Last year, Kansas City's Temwa Chawinga finished 17th.
Lavelle is also likely to finish behind fellow nominees Chawinga and Orlando Pride's Barbra Banda, both of whom have had more consistent NWSL dominance and bigger international profiles over the past year. Manchester City's Khadija Shaw, who scored 21 goals in 22 league games to win the WSL Golden Boot, is expected to finish high as well, and Japanese internationals could feature more prominently after their side won the 2026 Women's Asian Cup.
If Lavelle manages to land anywhere in the top ten, it would count as a genuine milestone — not just for her, but for the NWSL's standing on the global stage.
