PARIS.- Kylian Mbappécampaigning for Ballon d’Or despite a blank season with the real Madrid and the elimination of France in the semi-finals of Worldinsisted this Tuesday on the individual nature of the trophy, which rewards a player’s ability to “dazzle.”
“They are not going to announce a team inside the envelope. They are going to announce a player. (…) The ability to perform individually and dazzle, that is what marks people for a trophy like the Ballon d’Or,” he said in an interview with RFI radio.
“I have been the top scorer in all the major competitions and I think it could be a good year for me and I have good feelings,” he insisted.
Mbappé was the top scorer in the past Spanish league (25 goals), in the Champions League (15 goals) and in the World Cup 2026 He became, thanks to 10 more goals, the team’s all-time top scorer. World Cup (22 points in three editions).
He competes, especially, with his teammate on the French team Ousmane Dembelewhich points to a double, as well as with Lionel Messifinalist of the World with Argentina, and with several Spanish world champions such as Lamine Yamal, Rodri either Ferran Torres.
Twenty of the hundred votes will come from the African continent, something that makes the Blues captain happy, who has Algerian origins on his mother’s side and Cameroonian on his father’s side.
“I have always felt very loved every time I have set foot on the African continent (…) It is always a pleasure that people speak well of me, that they associate me with this award, the Ballon d’Or,” he added to RFI.
The Ballon d’Or will be awarded on October 26 at a gala in London.
Dealing with a “flu syndrome”
The captain of the French team, Mbappé, was absent from the national team’s training session this Tuesday in Clairefontaineon the outskirts of Paris, due to a “flu syndrome,” reported the Blues coaching staff.
The French superstar stayed “in bed”, three days before the first duel of France in the League of Nations, on Friday before Türkiye in Kocaeliwhere Zinedine Zidane He will make his debut on the French bench.
Without Mbappé, the other 22 called up for this international window approached the fans to sign autographs and take photos, before a training session open to the public.
