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'Ballon d'Or No. 1'Usmang Dembele's claim that it could be difficult to win the award has emerged.
European football transfer market expert Fabrizio Romano said in an interview on the 13th (Korea time), `Do you think Lamine Yamal will win the Ballon d'Or? Yes, I think so after talking to my fellow journalists. The magic he shows is what no one can show" he said.
The Ballon d'Or this season has been a series of chaos. Just before the opening of the season, Kylia Mbappe received the most attention as a transfer to Real, but the first player to go ahead was Mohamed Salah. He showed great performance in Liverpool and was expected. However, Salah fell behind in the Ballon d'Or race as Liverpool was eliminated from the European Champions League (UCL) early on.
The player named after that was Yamal. Yamal led Barcelona's domestic treble this season with a stat who complied with 55 official games, 18 goals and 21 assists. Despite his young age of 17, he has emerged as a clear world-class player under Han Ji Flick. Considering the performance award, there is no shortage to become a Ballon d'Or winner.
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However, despite Yamal's performance, Dembele is currently the most likely candidate for the Ballon d'Or. This season, Dembele has been a series of turnovers. Dembele, who transferred with the PSG squad reorganization policy ahead of the 2023-2024 season, was one of the players who had great talent at the time of the transfer but was not highly anticipated. Such an evaluation was natural. Dembele, who transferred from Dortmund to Barcelona in 2017 and recorded a huge transfer fee of 175 million euros (about 270 billion won), rarely showed an outstanding performance in Barcelona. Along with the evaluation of being unfaithful, injuries continued every season.
Immediately after the transfer to PSG, there was a lot of concern as evaluations poured out that Mbappe's breath was in play. In the 2023-2024 season, the first season immediately after the transfer to PSG, Dembele was below expectations with 42 games, 6 goals and 12 assists. There were predictions that concerns would lead to reality. Last summer, Mbappe left for Real Madrid and not many fans evaluated that Dembele could replace the position.
This season has been a perfect turnaround. He has established himself as a persona of director Luis Enrique. Played as a PSG ace, performing perfectly in both the winger and fake No. 9. He recorded nearly one offensive point per game with 33 goals and 11 assists in 49 official games this season. He also tied for top scorer with 21 goals in the league. It's not that he lacked performance in UCL. Dembele, who scored eight goals and four assists in 15 games, showed tremendous performance with two goals and five assists in seven Champions League tournaments, including two assists in the final.
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The biggest difference between Dembele and Yamal is whether they win the UCL or not. Dembele led the team to its first UCL victory in PSG history. Although winning the UCL does not determine whether to win the Ballon d'Or, it has been proven every year to be the most influential item. However, Romano insisted that Yamal would win the Ballon d'Or despite this situation. Attention is focusing on whether a reversal will occur as expected by Romano or whether Dembele will win his first Ballon d'Or as expected.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
