Dayot Upamecano

Dayot Upamecano is a French centre-back born on 27 October 1998 in Évreux, in Normandy. He plays for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and for the France national team. He came through the youth ranks at local club Évreux and then at Valenciennes, where he settled in the centre of defence.

France Football and L'Équipe name him one of the 30 nominees on the men's Ballon d'Or 2026 shortlist, published in September 2026. The Bundesliga's own site noted that he was one of four Bayern players on that list.

Upamecano moved to Red Bull Salzburg in 2015 and to RB Leipzig in January 2017, reaching the Champions League semi-finals with Leipzig in 2019–20. Bayern met his €42.5 million release clause in 2021, and he has since won the Bundesliga in 2021–22, 2022–23, 2024–25 and 2025–26, plus the 2025–26 DFB-Pokal; in February 2026 he extended his contract to 2030. For France he won the 2015 European Under-17 Championship and the 2020–21 Nations League, played all 120 minutes of the 2022 World Cup final, and was named in the FIFA World Cup Dream XI in 2026.

Sources of this text: Wikipedia · France Football / L'Équipe · Bundesliga