To obtain a Ballon d’Or, according to the criteria set up by the institution created in 1956 by the magazine France Football, voters must keep three criteria in mind: individual performances and the decisive character of the player, particularly during important matches; collective performances and prize list during the season in question; the class of the player and his fair play, that is to say his behavior on and off the field. Often I have the impression that this last point has been overlooked. That the major individual trophy of our favorite team sport had become more of a war of egos.
There was something delicious to see, on Monday evening, the hard-working striker, trained at Tottenham a few kilometers away, lift the coveted trophy, all in the middle of the gilded London Palladium. The “party” had started late, very late, too late. Because of the traffic in the English capital, it’s true. But also because it was absolutely necessary to roll out the red carpet and take lots of images for social networks, ahead of a ceremony which rewards a specific element in the middle of a discipline which should nevertheless be the prerogative of the collective.
For weeks, Kane’s two main competitors for this golden ball had been in borderline presidential campaigns. Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappé had almost managed to claim this trophy, they, the soloists of the ball. In general, a football superstar is rare in the media, preferring his own channels and advertisements to communicate to the outside world. But there, with the aim of trying to seduce and monopolize the vote of the hundred journalists, they tried to sell themselves, to provide after-sales service for a last season where no one crushed the world of football. Yes, Kane has done two TV shows and three newspapers. But nothing ostentatious.
In the end, the reporters preferred the most discreet of the three players. The one who returns to defend, the one who will serve a better placed teammate rather than trying his luck within sixteen meters, the one who will participate in the game far from the penalty area… And especially the one who does not pull the cover to himself. His post-ceremony speech was magnificent in this sense and I was almost standing on my couch with joy. Football, so mistreated for many years, has set the goal of hope. Well, after all, Harry Kane was still the author of 73 goals in 65 matches in all competitions and we must not forget that either.
If Karim Benzema had been nicknamed the “People’s Golden Ball” in 2022, Kane could be the one of “real football” in 2026. Because the Englishman was not really the “Wonder Kid” trained at the FC Barcelona Masia or bought by Paris St-Germain for 180 million euros at 19 years old. At that age, the Londoner was coming off four loans at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester. He continued almost ten years of frustration with his favorite club Tottenham, where he became arguably the best player in the world never to have won a single trophy. His departure for Bayern Munich changed everything.
In fact, I thought I felt that things were starting to turn a little in the right direction on Sunday evening, during the Clasico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid (1-2). At the very end of the game, José Mourinho’s men won on a lightning counterattack. On the program: roulette from Jude Bellingham in midfield, superhuman effort and big bridge from Eduardo Camavinga to successfully cross and goal from Mbappé in the empty cage. The French striker did not look at the author of the caviar. He went to celebrate on his own, while the majority of his teammates went directly to congratulate the decisive passer. That’s my football.
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