The Bola de Ouro (Golden Ball) is an annual award given each year, since 1973, by Brazilian sports magazine Placar to the best player in the Campeonato Brasileiro.
A group of sports journalists watch every match of the competition and rate players 1 to 10 based on their performance.
Since the 1975 edition Placar also started to award a Bola de Prata to the top goalscorer of the competition.
The players with most Bola de Ouro wins are Falcão, Toninho Cerezo, Zico, Roberto Costa and César Sampaio, each of them having won the award twice.
Both Pelé and Neymar were declared hors concours, not being allowed to participate due to being unrivaled by any other player.