Osimhen: Two factors behind Nigeria star 2026 Ballon d’Or omission

Super Eagles striker Victor Osimhen has missed out on the 30-man shortlist for the 2026 Ballon d’Or announced by France Football, Afrik-Foot reports.

The 27-year-old had, on paper, a legitimate case for inclusion. Galatasaray reached the UEFA Champions League round of 16 in 2025/26 for the first time in over a decade; Osimhen was the top scorer within the Yellow-Reds’ squad across all competitions.

However, the wider context of his season fell short of the criteria France Football’s voters historically prioritise, and two specific factors combined to keep him off the top 30 list.

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— Ballon d'Or (@ballondor) September 8, 2026

2 factors behind Osimhen’s 2026 Ballon d’Or omission

1. The statistical drop from 2024/25 to 2025/26

The first is that Osimhen’s 2025/26 output at Galatasaray simply did not match the record-breaking baseline he had set on loan from Napoli the previous season.

Across 2024/25, Osimhen registered 37 goals across all competitions in 41 appearances, setting a new Turkish Süper Lig record for the most goals scored by a foreign player in a single season (surpassing Mario Jardel’s 34 from 2000/01), producing seven assists, winning the Süper Lig and Turkish Cup double.

Across 2025/26, that output dropped to 22 goals across all competitions and 15 in the Süper Lig alone in a comparable number of appearances.

He remained Galatasaray’s leading scorer and helped the club retain their league title, but that huge goal decline from the previous season is the type of statistical curve Ballon d’Or voters penalise, particularly for a striker whose case rests on goal contributions rather than defensive or creative work.

The reason for the drop is not disputed. Injuries interrupted Osimhen at multiple points across the campaign, most notably the broken right forearm he sustained at Anfield in the 4-0 Champions League round of 16 second-leg defeat to Liverpool in March.

The broken arm required surgery and cost him four to six weeks of Süper Lig action at the exact stretch when a Ballon d’Or-defining finish to the season was still theoretically available.

That was also the moment the Turkish Süper Lig Golden Boot race pulled beyond him, with Trabzonspor’s Paul Onuachu and Basaksehir’s Eldor Shomurodov both finishing the season on 22 league goals.

2. Nigeria’s World Cup failure and big-moment absences

The second factor sits outside Osimhen’s control at club level but weighed just as heavily on his Ballon d’Or case.

France Football’s voters this year have visibly rewarded players whose national teams either won continental honours or featured at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and Osimhen finished on the wrong side of both metrics.

The African players who did make the list this year illustrate the pattern. Sadio Mane helped Senegal win the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations with the winning goal against Egypt in the semi-final, before Senegal beat hosts Morocco 1-0 in the final in Rabat, and Senegal qualified for the 2026 World Cup.

Achraf Hakimi captained Morocco to the 2026 World Cup quarter-finals after helping PSG win the Ligue 1 and Champions League double. Julian Quinones was the Saudi Pro League’s top scorer with Al Qadsiah and scored for Mexico at the 2026 World Cup on home soil.

Osimhen’s contribution to Nigeria’s 2025/26 international story ran in the opposite direction.

He scored four goals across the AFCON 2025 group stage and quarter-final, but was substituted off in extra time in the goalless semi-final defeat to Morocco, a game Nigeria ultimately lost 4-2 on penalties to eventual runners-up Morocco, the same feat that happened in the playoff final to DR Congo, missing out on the 2026 World Cup entirely.

The pattern of big-moment injury absences

The particularly cruel dimension of Osimhen’s 2025/26 campaign is that his most decisive contributions in Nigeria and Galatasaray’s cause were repeatedly interrupted by injury at the biggest moments.

He was subbed off in the AFCON semi-final against Morocco. He broke his arm at Anfield in the Champions League round of 16. He then picked up the current groin muscle strain in Galatasaray’s 3-2 Basaksehir win last week, ending his 2026/27 start at six goals in four matches.

Whether that is bad luck, cumulative physical load from a five-year run without meaningful breaks or a pattern that opponents have begun to isolate is a question for Galatasaray’s medical staff and Eric Chelle’s Super Eagles setup to answer over the coming months.

The one season when Osimhen was fully fit, he led Napoli to a Scudetto title, one they’d not lifted in 33 years, and in that same year, he was placed 8th in the Ballon d’Or rankings, becoming the first Nigerian to make the top ten of the French award.

Since then, he’s suffered injuries at crucial points of every campaign and has yet to return to the Ballon d’Or stage.

Osimhen’s 2023 CAF African Player of the Year triumph, alongside all of his achievements at club level, confirmed him as one of the most decorated Nigerian forwards of the modern era, and he doesn’t need a nomination to prove that.

However, the next opportunity is here, and now. That will require a full and injury-free 2026/27 campaign, a deep Champions League run at Galatasaray, and an AFCON 2027 campaign that leaves Nigeria with silverware to show for it.

Going with his current form, all three are still possible, but looking at his medical picture, none of them are guaranteed.