The Ballon d'Or award is an annual football award for the best player from the previous year. In 1958 (and up until 1995) only football players from Europe were eligible, and was generally known as the European Footballer of the Year award.
Below are the nominees in the final order after voting for the 1958 award. The winner was French player Raymond Kopa who played for Real Madrid. Kopa was the first Frenchman to win the award. The annual Kopa Trophy for the world's best young men's player is named after Raymond Kopa. See the list of every official Ballon d'Or winner.
As only European players were eligible for the Ballon d'Or at this time, there may have been players outside of Europe deserving of the best player of the year award. To coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Ballon d'Or in 2016, the results were reevaluated, and it was determined that in 1958, after a very successful World Cup campaign, Pelé would have won if he was eligible.
Final order for the men's 1958 Ballon d'Or
Order | Player | Club | Nationality | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Raymond Kopa | Real Madrid | France | 71 |
2 | Helmut Rahn | Rot-Weiss Essen | West Germany | 40 |
3 | Just Fontaine | Reims | France | 23 |
4 | John Charles | Juventus | Wales | 15 |
Kurt Hamrin | Padova / Fiorentina | Sweden | 15 | |
6 | Billy Wright | Wolverhampton Wanderers | England | 9 |
7 | Johnny Haynes | Fulham | England | 7 |
8 | Harry Gregg | Manchester United | Northern Ireland | 6 |
Nils Liedholm | Milan | Sweden | ||
Horst Szymaniak | Wuppertaler SV | West Germany | 6 | |
11 | Colin McDonald | Burnley | England | 5 |
12 | Francisco Gento | Real Madrid | Spain | 4 |
Gunnar Gren | Örgryte IS | Sweden | 4 | |
14 | Vujadin Boškov | Vojvodina | Yugoslavia | 3 |
Bengt Gustavsson | Atalanta | Sweden | 3 | |
Valentin Ivanov | Torpedo Moskva | Soviet Union | 3 | |
Luis Suárez | Barcelona | Spain | 3 | |
Lev Yashin | Dynamo Moscow | Soviet Union | 3 | |
19 | Orvar Bergmark | Örebro SK | Sweden | 2 |
Danny Blanchflower | Tottenham Hotspur | Northern Ireland | 2 | |
Ivan Kolev | CDNA Sofia | Bulgaria | 2 | |
Bruno Nicolè | Juventus | Italy | 2 | |
Ladislav Novák | Dukla Prague | Czechoslovakia | 2 | |
Lennart Skoglund | Internazionale | Sweden | 2 | |
25 | Giampiero Boniperti | Juventus | Italy | 1 |
Gerhard Hanappi | Rapid Wien | Austria | 1 |
Related Pages
- Ballon d'Or Home
- About the Kopa Trophy
- Men's Ballon d'Or Winner's List
- Football Awards Lists
- List of the FIFA male player of the year and FIFA female player of the year.
- History of the Ballon d'Or
- The Year in Sport: 1958