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A penny for Mbappe's thoughts...

Ousmane Dembele will win the Ballon d’Or before Kylian Mbappe – & here’s why

Nestor Watach •

Since the year 2000, only Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski have scored more goals in Europe’s major leagues than Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Messi and Ronaldo boast 13 Ballon d’Ors and nine Champions Leagues between them. Lewandowski played a starring role in a treble-winning season and was robbed of a rightful Ballon d’Or when it was cancelled by France Football in 2020.

Ibrahimovic scored over 300 league goals for some of Europe’s most glamorous clubs, claiming countless league titles across his time in Italy, France and Spain.

But the Champions League evaded him. He never even made it to a final. And not once did he make it onto the podium for the Ballon d’Or, never deemed one of the top three players in world football.

And when he was at the peak of his powers, he signed for the best side in Europe: Pep Guardiola’s era-defining, treble-winning Barcelona.

In his one and only season in Catalonia, the club he’d left – Inter – went and repeated Barcelona’s treble feat at their expense. Barcelona went and won it again the year after he departed on a sour note.

Was it just a peculiar quirk of fate that Ibrahimovic, one of the greatest goalscorers of his generation, never made it to a Champions League final?

Or was there something else to it? Could it be a mere coincidence that Barcelona went backwards after he joined and Inter took a major step forward?

Kylian Mbappe may well be asking himself the very same questions as history repeats itself.

How much should we read into PSG finally transforming into the all-conquering superteam that their Qatari overlords always dreamt of?

How much should we read into Real Madrid going from European champions, a team that lost two matches all season, to a side that won nothing of note?

One humiliated four times by Barcelona, that barely laid a glove on Arsenal in their Champions League quarter-final elimination?

Mbappe is the common denominator here. Are we conflating causation and correlation, or might there be something to it?

PSG boss Luis Enrique might not admit as much, but you imagine he holds the answers.

“Everyone is talking about the Ballon d’Or, but I would give it to Ousmane Dembele just because if we think about how he defended today, he showed just what he was made of,” Luis Enrique told reporters after the Champions League final.

“He was a leader, he was humble, he got back down [the pitch] and he defended, and I think that without a shadow of a doubt he deserves this, not only for the goals that he scored but also for the pressing that was seen.

“We’ve seen such a season from him, but he was exceptional in this final.”

Take note of his words carefully. Not once did Luis Enrique mention his two assists in PSG’s record-breaking 5-0 mauling of Inter. Not even a mention for the outrageously sexy backheel in the build-up to PSG’s third of the night, the goal that crushed Inter’s spirit for good.

No, it was his defending and application that bowled over his manager.

There is no better encapsulation of what he’s talking about than Dembele’s wild-eyed, dead-eyed focus, ready to press Yann Sommer like an apex predator stalking its prey.


This is a player who was dropped by his manager back in October for disciplinary reasons. PSG looked a different side entirely in their 2-0 defeat to Arsenal, completely insipid.

But you certainly get the impression that he’s taken the message on board. With Dembele – one of the senior figures in this team – setting the tone with his pressing and defending from the front, PSG look an unstoppable beast.

Luis Enrique is nothing if not consistent.

“I am not very happy with Kylian today,” Luis Enrique told Amazon Prime after Mbappe scored all three goals in a routine 3-0 victory over Reims last season.

“Why? Because managers are so strange. About goals, I have nothing to say, I have no complaints. But I think he can help the team a lot in a different way because he’s so important.

“I am going to tell him first, and after that I will never tell you because it’s not public. We think Kylian is one of the top players in the world, no doubt about that, but we need more and we want him doing more things, that’s my opinion.”

There’s a wonderful symmetry to his quotes after the Champions League final.

Dembele didn’t score on the night but Luis Enrique deems him worthy of the Ballon d’Or due to his work rate. Score three goals? Not impressed unless you’ve put in the hard yards.

Luis Enrique was using the media to send his star man a message, but it’s since been revealed that he was sounding it like a foghorn when directly dealing with Mbappe.

A meeting between the coach and player from a Movistar documentary released last year makes for fascinating viewing.


“I read that you liked Michael Jordan,” the PSG manager began in the now-viral clip.

“Michael Jordan would grab his team-mates by the balls and defend like a madman. You have to set that example first as a person and as a player.

“You’re a phenomenon, a world-class player. Not a doubt. But that’s not enough for me.

“A true leader is someone who, when you can’t help us with goals, because the other day you had two high-level players against you, you help us in everything that matters.

“That’s what I want you to do. As a leader here. The two games you have left. I want you to leave through the big door. Without any regrets.”

Mbappe scored a record number of goals in a debut season for Real Madrid and claimed his first European Golden Shoe.

But you look at Los Blancos’ collective failings and dysfunction in 2024-25, and you can’t help but wonder if his old boss’ words fell on deaf ears.

Look into Dembele’s eyes and tell me that he hasn’t taken on Luis Enrique’s very same message.

That’s the Ballon d’Or frontrunner, right there.

By Nestor Watach

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Ousmane Dembele PSG