Ballon d’Or: Kylian Mbappé’s strange evening

The continuation after this publicity For once for a very long time, the ceremony of handing-over of the Golden ball did not offer any more any suspense. For months and the fourteenth coronation of Real Madrid in the Champions League, the football world had been expecting to see Karim Benzema lift the Grail at 34 years old. This evening of Monday, October 17, 2022 was therefore solely devoted to the deserved coronation of Merengue. However, another guest was expected: Kylian Mbappé. It must be said that the Paris Saint-Germain player is coming out of an incredible week. Announced on the departure in January then cited in a case in which he would have been targeted by his own club by digital attacks in 2019, the Bondynois was also announced absent for this ceremony. The reason given? The number 7 of the Rouge-et-Bleu would have known that he was not part of the top 5 and therefore would not have wanted to attend the event. Finally, it was Le Parisien who sold the wick yesterday afternoon, shortly before 2 p.m.: Mbappé will be fine at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Did the 2018 world champion plan to come or did he change his mind at the last moment? Nobody knows, but his relationship and his attachment to Benzema would have weighed heavily in his decision. Sitting in the front row, Mbappé attended the coronations of Alexia Putellas, Gavi, Robert Lewandowski, Sadio Mané and Thibaut Courtois, respective winners of the Women’s Ballon d’Or, the Kopa Trophy, the Gerd Müller Trophy, the Socrates Prize and the Yachin Trophy. Impassive most of the time while the realization often proposed plans on him, each time a point on the classification was made, Mbappé then changed his mind. Mbappé congratulates Benzema And this time, the Parisian had the look of the bad days…. The greater the delight of fans of “memes” on social networks. Mbappé had indeed just learned that he was ranked sixth and that he was therefore not part of a top 5 made up of Karim Benzema, Sadio Mané, Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah and Robert Lewandowski. A moment captured by all the media who were only expecting two things last night: the coronation of Benzema and the reactions of Mbappé. Without forgetting a possible meeting between the Frenchman and a certain Florentino Pérez after the soap opera last spring. In the end, Marca indicated that the Madrid clan took good care to avoid any contact with the Bondynois. Pérez has also split an explicit statement, just to put a little distance (media?) With the Ile-de-France. Visibly frustrated by this sixth place, Mbappé saw himself better ranked after a very high-flying 2021/2022 season (39 goals, 26 assists in 46 games, all competitions combined). But unsurprisingly, with the new judging criteria put in place by France Football, the elimination of PSG from the knockout stages of the Champions League was prohibitive for the Parisian. Beyond their individual performances, all the members of the top 5 did better than him. Lewandowski made it to the quarter-finals, De Bruyne to the semi-finals while Mané, Salah and Benzema played in the grand final. The evening then ended soberly for the Parisian who made people talk about him one last time after posting a message of congratulations to Benzema. Kylian Mbappé came in 6th for the Ballon d’Or 👀 pic.twitter.com/id7hZF4ACu— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) October 17, 2022