How it works
Pull a random soccer player, or a random football player if that is your word for it, from 220 names: the 117 men on the last seven Ballon d'Or nominee lists, plus 103 who finished in the award's top three since 1956. Filter by year, country or position. For the American game, use the random NFL player generator.
Read the full guide
Set the menu, then pull
The menu cuts the pool to a nominee year, the retired greats, a top-three decade, a country or a position, so a random player from Brazil is one choice away. Each press pulls one; Add another builds a list of random soccer players with no repeats. When a friend says "give me a random soccer player", pull one, press Copy and paste it.
Where the 220 names come from
The list follows two published selections on Wikipedia: the 30-man nominee lists of 2019 and 2021 to 2026 (none in 2020), and the top-three table from 1956 to 2025. The award's organisers have no link to this site. The 100 retired greats are top-three finishers whose article shows a finished club career. To have a name removed or corrected, use the contact page.
- Who am I: pull one, read out only the line under the name, and let the room guess. Country, position and award years are usually enough for the greats.
- Five-a-side draft: everyone pulls a goalkeeper, then takes turns on Defenders, Midfielders and Forwards in the menu until each side has five.
- For a spin the wheel soccer players night, spin the soccer team wheel first, then pull a player here.
Questions and answers
Is this a soccer player wheel?
It is a list picker, not a drawn wheel. A wheel of soccer players with 220 segments would be too thin to read, so each pick shows as a card, and every name has the same chance.
How is a player's country decided?
It is the flag the award table shows beside his name, not his birthplace or his club. One Argentine-born forward of the 1950s is filed under Spain, because that is how the table lists him. Eleven countries have their own group and the rest share Other countries.
Why is a famous player missing?
The list follows two published selections only. Until 1995 the award was open only to European players, and until 2007 only to players at European clubs, so many greats from other continents could never be voted for. Nobody under 18 is listed. On this list Ronaldinho and Jari Litmanen sit under their decade, not under Retired greats, because their source articles list a current club.