At the Stade de France,
Kylian Mbappé is the efficient type, we are starting to know it. So after sending a letter to the management of PSG to tell him that he would not extend beyond 2024, he took advantage of being at the post office to deliver a second message, this time for the attention of the jurors. of the next Ballon d’Or: I’m here guys. “It’s difficult to talk about an individual trophy, because you have to put yourself forward and it’s not well seen by the general public. What are the new criteria? Is it to burn the retina and be impactful? I think so, I meet the criteria, ”he said at the microphone of TF1.
It happened a few minutes after the victory of the French team against Greece, where he scored the only goal of the match from the penalty spot. His 54th in all competitions, which makes him the most prolific French player in history over a season, ahead of Just Fontaine who had slammed 53 in the year of his famous 13 World Cup goals. Maybe Kyk’s could have reached 55 or 56 if Spanish referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz hadn’t forgotten his goggles, but he’ll settle for it. This peno comes to close a crazy season, during which he will have scored 41 times with PSG and 13 with the Blues, including eight during the World Cup. Only Erling Haaland reaches these heights in European football.
The Norwegian represents precisely one of his two main competitors for the next Ballon d’Or, with Leo Messi, if we consider that the only memory of Qatar will be enough to scratch an eighth. The new captain of the Blues leaves with a delay, since he won neither the Champions League like the first, nor the World Cup like the second. Hence perhaps the little phrase on “the new criteria”.
The prize list remains a central element in the vote of the jurors, but in the end, Mbappé is right. Since last year’s reform, “individual performance” and the “decisive and impressive character of the contenders” are now the number one criterion, ahead of “the collective aspect and the trophies won” and “the class of the player and his sense of fair play”. We don’t know exactly what the “impressive character” corresponds to, but we can say that the Parisian sticks quite well to this qualifier – and probably more than the cyborg who came from the cold. We can still write without going too far that this reflection weighed in the choice not to activate his year as an option in Paris.
” This is just the beginning “
At the French level, in any case, Mbappé continues to erase records at lightning speed. With now 40 goals in 70 selections, he arrives like a racing car in the retro of Michel Platini, who had ended his international career with 41 goals in 72 caps. The passing times are identical, except that the Parisian reaches them 8 years younger than Platoche. “It’s huge when you know what Michel Platini represents for the French, an absolute legend, one of the best players in the history of football”, greeted the TGV bondynois.
At the rate he is going, Olivier Giroud’s mark (even increased by a few units) should fall within two years. “We are all happy for him, but this is only the beginning. He will continue to beat it, that’s for sure, ”considers Ibrahima Konaté with confidence. The interested party is ready to sign, but only if there are trophies to go with it. For Lusail’s pain will never go away.
“At the time I would have exchanged my three goals for one against his ugly camp and 1-0 for us, he assures. Looking back, it’s hard to say that we made history without leaving with the Cup. We wrote it in part, we made an anthology match and we gave everyone pleasure. But it was hard to pass the Cup without lifting it. “Knowing him, he must have already thought that if the Blues were to win a new one, it would be him who would have the right to brandish it first.