Rodri's Ballon d'Or, won in 2024, already sat alongside a Champions League winner's medal from 2023. But it took Spain beating Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the 2026 World Cup final for the Manchester City midfielder to complete one of football's rarest personal collections. He is now the 11th man in the game's history to have won the World Cup, the Champions League and the Ballon d'Or — and in the days since, ONE has run through the players it believes are best placed to join him.

It is exclusive company. Sir Bobby Charlton, Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer, Paolo Rossi, Zinedine Zidane, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaká, Lionel Messi and Ousmane Dembélé — who completed his own set only last October by winning the 2025 Ballon d'Or — all got there before Rodri. ONE's list of seven candidates, ranked by the outlet's own reckoning, runs from a teenager barely two years into his senior career to players already well into their careers.

Lamine Yamal tops it. The Barcelona forward already has Euro 2024 and now the World Cup itself with Spain, and after the final in the summer he said he had 'almost completed the set.' He finished runner-up to Dembélé in the 2025 Ballon d'Or voting, and with Barcelona building a squad under Hansi Flick they hope can compete for the Champions League, ONE rates him needing just two more trophies at an age when most players are still fighting for a regular first-team place.

Kylian Mbappé has held a World Cup winner's medal since 2018, when he inspired France to the title as a teenager. What he lacks, ONE notes, is the Champions League — a trophy that eluded him throughout his years at Paris Saint-Germain and has eluded him at Real Madrid so far too — and the Ballon d'Or, where his best finish remains third, behind Messi and Erling Haaland, in 2023.

Jude Bellingham already has the Champions League, lifted with Real Madrid in 2024. The World Cup and the Ballon d'Or are the pieces missing, and ONE points to the obvious question mark over England's prospects of ending their long wait for a major trophy — with the next World Cup not arriving until 2030.

Aurélien Tchouaméni starts furthest back of the seven, with none of the three yet to his name. The France and Real Madrid midfielder was on the losing side in the 2022 World Cup final, but ONE rates him a plausible future Ballon d'Or contender given his growing influence in central midfield.

Vitinha already has a Champions League winner's medal from Paris Saint-Germain's continental triumph and finished third in the 2025 Ballon d'Or voting, behind Dembélé and Yamal. A World Cup with Portugal is the trophy ONE says he is still chasing.

Julián Álvarez may be the closest of all, even if he rarely gets framed that way. The Argentine already has the World Cup, won as a 22-year-old in Qatar in 2022, and the Champions League, lifted with Manchester City in 2023. Only the Ballon d'Or is missing, and ONE notes his continued goalscoring form at Atlético Madrid keeps building the case.

Vinícius Júnior completes the list. Two Champions League titles with Real Madrid put him among the favourites eventually to complete the set, but the World Cup and the Ballon d'Or remain outstanding — and with Brazil's next World Cup not arriving until 2030, when he turns 30, ONE suggests the clock on both is not unlimited.

What the piece really underlines, published in the immediate aftermath of Rodri's own achievement, is just how rare the combination remains even among the players who define the modern game: ten legends spanning six decades, now an eleventh — and, on ONE's own reckoning, seven more names with a route, however narrow, to joining them.