A look at teams nominated for Laureus World Team of Year Award 2025

Six teams, six dynasties—each vying for the ultimate honour at the 2025 Laureus World Team of Year Awards.

The Laureus World Team of Year Award 2025 honours the finest in global sports, with nominees representing dominance, legacy, and resurgence. Real Madrid and the Boston Celtics continue their storied reigns, while McLaren F1 and FC Barcelona Femení celebrate triumphant returns to glory.

Spain’s men’s football team cements its golden era, and Team USA’s basketball dynasty extends its Olympic supremacy. As Madrid hosts the ceremony, these teams stand on the brink of history, each vying for a place among the legends.

Real Madrid

Under Madrid’s azure sky, the white-clad warriors of Real Madrid stand poised for yet another crowning achievement. Founded in 1902, their journey from Madrid Football Club to royal status—bestowed by King Alfonso XIII in 1920—mirrors their ascent to football immortality.

The Santiago Bernabéu has witnessed the accumulation of 71 domestic trophies, a cathedral to sporting excellence where glory is not hoped for but expected. Last year’s magnificent quintet—Spanish Super Cup, La Liga, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and FIFA Intercontinental Cup—now places them in contention for the Laureus World Team Award.

Next month, in their hometown, the ceremony awaits. The crown on his head has never looked more deserved.

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Boston Celtics

In the shadow of TD Garden, where eighteen championship banners sway like testaments to time, the Boston Celtics continue writing their storied legacy. The NBA‘s most decorated franchise—those green-clad warriors who’ve danced across hardwood since 1946—now stand nominated for the 2025 Laureus World Team Award after clinching their record-setting 18th championship.

The nomination acknowledges more than a trophy; it celebrates basketball’s most enduring dynasty. As April’s ceremony in Madrid approaches, the Celtics’ achievement transcends sport—becoming another chapter in a narrative that has defined basketball excellence for generations.

McLaren F1 Team

In the gleaming halls of motorsport history, the McLaren stands as a towering icon of racing achievement, its papaya and blue colours now gleaming anew with recent glory. After twenty-six years of wandering the desert of competitive drought, the Woking-based outfit has reclaimed Formula One‘s ultimate team prize—the Constructors’ Championship—through a symphony of engineering brilliance and driving mastery.

The team’s revival echoes through the prestigious Laureus World Team of the Year nomination. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, McLaren’s young lions, carved their names into racing lore with six Grand Prix victories and twenty-one podium appearances in 2024, orchestrating a renaissance that has positioned this storied British team alongside sporting royalty like Real Madrid and the Boston Celtics in pursuit of April’s coveted award.

Also Read: Full list of Indian athletes nominated for Laureus World Sports Awards

FC Barcelona Women

From humble beginnings as an unsanctioned selection of players to becoming titans of European football, FC Barcelona Femení’s journey mirrors the evolution of women’s football itself. Born in 1970 as Selecció Ciutat de Barcelona, this phoenix of Catalan sport has risen through multiple identities and relegation battles to claim nine league titles and unprecedented quadruple glory.

Now, the team stands poised at another pinnacle as they are nominated for the prestigious 2025 Laureus World Team of the Year Award after their perfect 2023-2024 campaign. Their dominance spans continents, capturing a slew of domestic trophies as well as the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

In their midst, midfield maestro Aitana Bonmatí seeks her coronation as World Sportswoman of the Year, her Ballon d’Or brilliance casting golden light on Madrid’s April ceremony.

Spanish men’s football team

In the golden light of football‘s mega-event, Spain stands as a colossus whose shadow extends into the modern era. From consistent World Cup qualifiers since 1978 to becoming champions of the beautiful game in 2010, La Roja have systematically etched their legacy in the hallowed pages of the sport.

With their historic fourth European Championship captured in 2024—a record unmatched by any nation—Spain has quietly assembled the century’s most formidable national team resume. Their unprecedented triple crown of consecutive major titles (2008-2012) remains a singular achievement, while their recent Nations League triumph completes a trophy triad shared only with France.

Now nominated for the 2025 Laureus World Team Award, they await judgment day in Madrid—fittingly, on home soil.

Also Read: A look at players nominated for Laureus World Comeback of Year Award 2025 ft. Rishabh Pant

USA Men’s Basketball team

They came to Paris as living legends, a constellation of basketball immortals whose average age of thirty years and nine months belied their cosmic talent. “The Avengers,” some called them—these American heroes wielding not shields or hammers, but precision jump shots and thunderous dunks.

In the City of Light, Team USA wrote another golden chapter in their unparalleled Olympic saga, defeating the home nation France 98-87 to claim their fifth consecutive Olympic championship. The victory preserved a legendary legacy: twenty Olympic appearances, twenty medals, 17 of them gold.

From the inaugural 1936 Games through the Hall of Fame-enshrined “Dream Team” of 1992 to this 2024 incarnation, America’s basketball dominance remains unshaken, their FIBA top ranking merely a formal acknowledgment of what the sporting world has long known.

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