Despite the difficulty of winning the 2023 Golden Ball, Mbappe is expected to still set a unique milestone for himself after the announcement ceremony.
The 2023 Golden Ball Award ceremony will take place in Paris at dawn on October 31 (Vietnam time), but a son of this city, Mbappe, will probably find it difficult to be happy. Because it is likely that the winner of this year’s award will be Messi or Haaland.
But that’s not the worst thing that could happen to Mbappe. According to GOAL, the PSG striker will not be guaranteed to be on the podium of the 2023 Golden Ball. That means he will not be in the final top 3 of this year’s competition.
That would be a sad ending for Mbappe. Because he also had a 2022/23 season full of efforts when he helped PSG win Ligue 1, joined the French team in the 2022 World Cup final and became the top scorer of the tournament.
If he really falls out of the top 3 of the 2023 Golden Ball, it will be a big blow to Mbappe – World Cup 2022 top scorer (photo: Getty)
According to GOAL, one of Man City’s two midfielders, Rodri or De Bruyne, is expected to finish in the top 3, behind Haaland while Messi is the overall winner.
ADVERTISEMENT
However, with a personal record of 54 goals/56 matches last season, Mbappe is predicted to reach the top 5 of the 2023 Golden Ball. At that time, he will have the 6th consecutive time reaching the top 10 of the competition since the last time. First nominated in 2017.
Currently, only Messi (15), Ronaldo (14), Zidane (7), Henry (7) have reached the top 10 Golden Balls more than 6 times since 1997. However, all 4 names above have won the Golden Ball. retiring or leaving Europe, Mbappe is definitely the player with the most top 10 appearances currently playing on the old continent.
Mbappe has never finished outside the top 10 of the Golden Ball since 2017 (photo: Getty)
Another notable statistic is that if this year is included, Kylian Mbappe will become the only player who has never dropped out of the top 10 Golden Balls since 2017. This number for rival Haaland will only be 3 if included . this year’s results.
Only playing in the French National Championship further shows Mbappe’s incredible excellence and stability since his Golden Ball debut 6 years ago.
But unfortunately, he still never became the final winner. Perhaps after this season, Mbappe will find a new, bigger club, like Real Madrid, to get closer to the first Golden Ball title of his career.
