Winning the Golden Ball seems to be on Kylian Mbappé’s mind. He mentioned it in a recent interview and reiterated that he believes he did everything he could to win the prestigious award at the end of October.
“It will be a disappointment for me if I don’t win it. I believe I was the best soccer player in the world last season. I’m calm. I did everything I could; now I have to wait. They’re not going to announce a team in the envelope. They’ll announce a player. The ability to perform individually and dazzle the crowd is what impresses people when it comes to an award like the Ballon d’Or. “I’ve been the top scorer in all the major tournaments, and I think this could be a good year for me, and I feel good about it,” said the captain of the French national team, who was the top scorer in La Liga with 25 goals, in the Champions League with 15 goals, and this summer, thanks to the 10 goals he scored at the 2026 World Cup, became the all-time leading scorer in World Cup history (22 goals across three tournaments).
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Of the votes, 20 out of 100 will represent the African continent, a fact that pleases the French captain, who has Algerian roots through his mother and Cameroonian roots through his father: “I’ve always felt very welcome every time I’ve set foot on the African continent. It’s always a joy for me when people speak highly of me, when they associate me with this award, the Ballon d’Or,” Mbappé emphasized.
He also commented on Zinedine Zidane taking over as head coach of the “Tricolores”: “Didier Deschamps made history by bringing the national team back to where it belongs. For that, we’ll always be grateful. Now, it’s a new chapter with a new coach. It’s the beginning; it’s something new. We’ll have to find our footing, but we’ll be thrown right into the deep end, and we’ll have to start winning again right away, because that’s what people expect from us. Obviously, we always expect the French national team to be at the top. We live in the same city, so we’ve met several times. We already knew each other, but I’m really looking forward to going to the training center to truly understand what he expects from us as a team and what he expects from me as a player.”
*photo source: AP
