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| 출처=ESPN |
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| APYonhap News |
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As French national soccer team colleague Usman Dembele (28, Paris Saint-Germain), a year old, was honored as the winner for the first time in his life at the 2025 Ballon d'Or Awards, attention is naturally focusing on whether Kylian Mbappe (27, Real Madrid) will win the award in the future.
Mbappe is a representative 'World Class', which was expected to win the Ballon d'Or after Lionel Messi (38, Inter Miami) and Cristiano Ronaldo (40, Al Nasr), but he has not yet become the star of the ceremony eight years after he was first nominated for the Ballon d'Or.
At the 2025 Ballon d'Or, he ranked seventh without even reaching the podium. In addition to Dembele, who is a quadruple (four-time winner) in the 2024-2025 season, he was also behind Ramin Yamal (18, Barcelona), Vitinha (25, Paris Saint-Germain), Mohamed Salah (33, Liverpool), Hapinha (29, Barcelona), and Achraf Hakimi (27, Paris Saint-Germain).
Mbappe, who left Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) to join Real, a dream club, in the summer of 2024, scored 44 goals in 59 games in all competitions last season. In La Liga, he scored 31 goals and won the scoring award. However, that was not enough to go beyond the Ballon d'Or podium. In the European Champions League, he had to watch his former team, PSG, win, and the Spanish Primera Liga and Copadelay trophy lost to rival Barcelona with Yamal at the forefront. He only won the European Super Cup and FIFA Intercontinental Cup in 2024.
It was the first time in four years since the 2020-2021 season that Real failed to win any of the Champions League, La Liga or Copadelay. Mbappe wasn't lucky.
Mbappe surprised the world of soccer in 2018, when he ranked a surprise seventh in the Ballon d'Or at the age of 20. It was a performance comparable to Yamal, who became the first teenager to reach the podium this year. It was a time when attention was focused on who will win the Ballon d'Or after Ronaldo and Messi, the two major mountain ranges of world soccer, and Mbappe's name was mentioned along with Neymar (Santus), a former PSG teammate. Neymar left the European big leagues without winning the Ballon d'Or and returned to his native Brazil.
Mbappe moved one step closer to the podium at the 2019 Ballon d'Or, jumping three notches from the previous year to fourth place. Mbappe, who led France to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, ran with the momentum that he would soon gain the world. Hana's PSG continued to lose the competition, missing the Champions League title. It fell to 6th place in 2020 and 9th place in 2021. Mbappe, who jumped back to No. 6 in 2022, reached the podium (3rd) for the first and only time in his career in 2023. However, it fell back to sixth place in 2024, and only ranked seventh this year, the lowest in five years.
The era of Menaldo is over, but we had to watch Karim Benzema in 2022, Rodri in 2024, and Dembele win the Ballon d'Or with the Champions League trophy in 2025. Coincidentally, PSG defeated Inter Milan and lifted the big year in the Champions League final of the 2024-2025 season shortly after Mbappe left the team for the first time in six years. Dembele, who was only the second-in-command when Mbappe had the influence of 'Chapter', was reborn as a new ace and enjoyed the excitement of winning the Ballon d'Or.
Spanish journalist Guillaume Balage wrote in a column for British public broadcaster 『BBC"Dembele, who moved to PSG from Barcelona in 2023, was far from a main player. In the 2023-2024 season, Mbappe had his best season with 44 goals. After Mbappe got Real's call, PSG needed a new leader and key player, and that was Dembele. Dembele posted 51 offensive points (35 goals and 16 assists) in the 2024-2025 season. This is twice the number of offensive points in a single season of his career. PSG coach Luis Enrique told Dembele that `If Mbappe is not in the team, we need to score more goals, more help.' It was an unlimited authority to reduce the number of passes and show greater desire to score. Dembele enjoyed adapting to his new tactical role. Dembele, who played primarily on the right side in the 2023-2024 season, was unable to push Mbappe out. Now, he has more ball touches at the fake No. 9 position in the middle and has increased his freedom to receive passes. I'm also involved in the build-up, but I also have more chances to finish."
Shortly after the ceremony, Mbappe showed off his hot friendship by congratulating Dembele, his teammate in the national team, on his personal SNS. "It's such a special feeling, brother. You deserve this a thousand times more.
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| AFP Yonhap News |
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Mbappe, of course, has a chance left. Luca Modric (40, AC Milan) won the Ballon d'Or in 2018 when he was 33. Benzema was 35 when he won the Ballon d'Or, and Rodri and Dembele were honored at the age of 28, respectively. Mbappe is raising expectations for the Ballon d'Or by showing his peak skills in the early part of 2025-2026, his second season as a member of Real. He scored five goals in five La Liga games, two in one Champions League game, and seven goals, more than one per game in six games. Along with Harry Kane (Bayern Munich) and Elling Holan (Man City), they are considered the most prominent players in the early stages of the season.
Meanwhile, Mbappe's teammate Vinicius Junior, who complained publicly after finishing second at the Ballon d'Or last year, finished 16th at the ceremony. Real strongly protested Vinicius' failure to win the award and did not appear at the awards this year following last year.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
