When Brazilian legend Ronaldo announced Harry Kane's name, he played along, applauding the Englishman for a long time, but never getting up from his seat in the front row at the London Palladium on Monday October 26. Kylian Mbappé could hardly hide his disappointment, a month after the end of a long media campaign in which he defended his candidacy. “I have the idea that I can win it this year. I’m not saying that I’m going to win it unanimously, but I have arguments,” the person said in a long interview with France Football at the beginning of September.
"To pass in front of all the greatest legends in the history of sport in the most important tournament that sport has created. It's something that burns the retina. I always start from the principle that history must be rewarded," he said, referring to having become the top scorer in the history of the World Cup (22 goals). It is true that the captain of the France team met the first official criterion for the Ballon d'Or: "individual performances" and their "decisive and impressive character".
The top scorer of the last La Liga and Champions League finally failed in second place. On the one hand, this is the best ranking of his career three years after his third place. On the other hand, he had never been so close to this trophy that he has coveted since the year of his explosion at the highest level in 2017. "It is a personal dream because it is the ultimate individual consecration for any footballer who one day starts kicking a ball", he already said for France Football at the age of 18.
Monday evening, Vincent Garcia, the editor-in-chief of the magazine which created and organizes the Ballon d'Or, dug the knife a little deeper into the Real Madrid striker's wound, revealing that the coronation was decided "by very few points between Kane and Mbappé". “The gap is less than that between Rodri (1,170 points) and Vinicius (1,129 points) in 2024,” the journalist even said on the L’Equipe channel. Less than 41 points separate the two men at the end of the counting of the top 10 delivered by the panel of 100 journalists interviewed by France Football.
When the reward eluded him in 2018, then a dazzling world champion at just 19 years old, football players and observers all agreed that his turn would naturally come. The Frenchman may be the only player to appear in the top 10 of the last nine editions of the Ballon d'Or, but he has still not had the right to take the stage at the most anticipated moment of the ceremony.
Although he gave a few words when he arrived on the red carpet, Kylian Mbappé left the London Palladium without taking the time to talk about the outcome of the evening. The one who dreamed of following in the footsteps of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi has fallen behind the two legends, who accumulated five Golden Balls between them at the same age (4 for Messi and 1 for Ronaldo).
At almost 28 years old, he is one of nine players in the history of football to have occupied both second and third places in the ranking without ever having been crowned alongside Iniesta, Bernd Schuster, Dennis Bergkamp, Luigi Riva, Preben Elkjaer Larsen, Rob Rensenbrink, Thierry Henry and... Lamine Yamal, direct competitor and nine years younger than him. This season, Kylian Mbappé will once again have to fight with fierce competition, including other developing players like his compatriots Michael Olise (24 years old), Désiré Doué (21 years old).
But he is far from having said his last word. His Real Madrid finally seems to be on the right track after a blank and chaotic season. Under the orders of José Mourinho, he gave victory to the Merengues in the first Clasico of the season on Sunday (2-1). It's up to him to remain as decisive when he enters the decisive months from February. Harry Kane's coronation at 33 can also inspire him.
After all, Kylian Mbappé himself confided that he had learned to digest his past failures at the Ballon d'Or: "It's a beautiful thing because it nourishes a path, a storytelling". If he decides to imitate his idol Cristiano Ronaldo by playing beyond the age of 40, more than half of his story still remains to be written.
