Real Madrid’s French superstar Kylian Mbappé said Tuesday that this year was “perhaps the right one” to win his first Ballon d’Or after having “marked the history” of football by becoming the top scorer at the 2026 World Cup.
“When we play for Real Madrid, the best club in the world, we are inevitably associated with these kinds of individual awards. When people pass me in the street, they talk about me as a potential Ballon d’Or. It’s true that I made history this summer in the most prestigious competition in world sport, so I have the feeling that this is perhaps the right year to win it,” Mbappé declared at a press conference on the eve of Real Madrid’s entry into the Champions League against Inter Milan.
“But the process is still long, and journalists are free to vote for who they consider to be the best player in the world,” he added.
In the absence of a clear favorite, the captain of the French team, who this summer became the top scorer in the history of the Blues and the World Cup, is one of the contenders for the Ballon d’Or alongside the 2025 winner Ousmane Dembélé, the English striker from Bayern Munich Harry Kane, the Spanish world champion Rodri or the Parisians Fabian Ruiz and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
“We still have this hunger”
His coach José Mourinho estimated last week that the former PSG striker deserved to win this award, while his Parisian counterpart Luis Enrique considers that it must go to one of his players, double European champions.
In another response, Mbappé acknowledged that he “always” thinks he is the best player in the world, but that “everyone has their opinion.”
Regarding the elimination in the semi-final of the World Cup against Spain, the French striker conceded that this defeat had been particularly difficult to digest.
“It was a difficult moment yes. The hardest part, I don’t know, because I also lost a World Cup final (2022) and a Champions League final (2020). This World Cup was really a great competition, in terms of the connection we created with our country. People appreciated our way of playing, the atmosphere and the energy that the team gave, and the image that we gave of France to the whole world,” he explained.
“We really wanted to win. But we have already won a World Cup (in 2018), we cannot always achieve it. Whether we win or lose, we always have this hunger to win, because the day we lose this desire, it will be the day to retire,” concluded Mbappé.
