To save soccer, let’s take away the Ballon d’Or | EUROtoday

LE Football is performed eleven. But in the long run, a single identify is critical. This annual fiction is the Ballon d’Or, and it sheds mild on what soccer is changing into.

Latest instance, the French workforce. As she closed her season by the Final Four From the League of Nations (evaluation, an unconvincing victory in opposition to Germany and an encouraging defeat in opposition to Spain), the Battle for the Ballon d’Or parasité, to the purpose of fueling rumors of tensions within the locker room.

A media debate that crushes every part

At every press convention, the identical questions had been looping. Who deserves it? Who helps who? Why did not Didier Deschamps defend Ousmane Dembélé’s candidacy extra firmly? Why did not Ibrahima Konaté argue that of Kylian Mbappé?

Read too Why does France not deserve Didier DeschampsIt has turn into a catchphrase. As summer time approaches, media debates on the Ballon d’Or artificially feed the information of the offseason. Each participant finds himself summoned to take a stand, as if this trophy had turn into the last word referendum on which it was crucial to determine. On tv, in pre-match interviews, on social networks, it has turn into an obsession. A race that acts as a distorting prism, crushing the richness of sporting tales and relegating invisible gestures, collective contributions, tactical balances.

A biased and individualistic studying

Football is undoubtedly essentially the most complicated and most interdependent collective sport. Bringing a participant like the perfect is, by nature, a misinterpretation. How to prioritize the significance of a central defender, a restoration surroundings, a center-forward? Why solely worth the objective or the help, when it’s generally the penultimate cross that breaks the traces, or the saving sort out that saves the workforce? The Ballon d’Or imposes a biased and individualistic studying of a sport primarily based on collective intelligence.

The winner of the Ballon d’Or is proof of this. In almost 70 editions, solely 4 winners had been defenders or guards: Lev Yachine in 1963, Franz Beckenbauer in 1972 and 1976, Matthias Sammer in 1996 and Fabio Cannavaro in 2006. In 2024, Certainly, a participant with a defensive vocation, Rodri, received the trophy. But this uncommon exception confirms a rule: the virtually systematically sacred golden balloon of offensive profiles.

It isn’t any coincidence. It is the fruits of a approach of consuming soccer by the figures: objectives, assists, anticipated objectives (anticipated objectives). Anything that escapes these metrics, the saving sort out, the penultimate cross, work within the shadows, appears invisible. Thus, legendary defenders, like Franco Barei, Paolo Maldini or Alessandro Nesta, by no means received the Ballon d’Or. A nonsense.

NBA -ization of soccer

This cult of statistics in any respect prices additionally contributes to a type of soccer nba -ization. Like the North American League, the place the title of MVP (Most Valuable Player: finest participant) is predicated on particular person averages, factors, rebounds, passes, soccer additionally tends to be learn an increasing number of by means of traces of stats, objectives, assists, kilometers traveled. This mannequin pushes some gamers to play for the leaf, to pressure decisive gestures to optimize their private evaluation, even when it means betraying the collective spirit of the sport. Again, the Golden Ball serves as a robust lever for this drift.

It is the fruits of a globalized, hypermarchandized soccer, which wants superstars to promote jerseys, TV rights, viral content material. A mannequin the place the hyper-individualization of sport serves trade, however deeply distorts the spirit of the sport.

The Ballon d’Or has additionally turn into a political subject, the place sports activities campaigns, picture methods, and generally even geopolitical issues combine. Each 12 months, golf equipment, federations, sponsors orchestrate actual campaigns for his or her candidates.

The very composition of the Golden Ball electoral physique accentuates its biases. Each nation has a voting, and a few decisions border on the absurd. In 2024, for instance, the Salvador consultant (83ᵉ within the FIFA rating) dismissed Rodri from the Top 5 and relegated Vinicius out of the Top 10, regardless of one of many largest seasons of their careers. These votes, usually dictated by affect networks or private affinities, nonetheless weaken the legitimacy of this trophy.

“No player is big if he does not make his team big”

Marcelo Bielsa, one of many nice theorists of this sport, recalled it: poorly positioned pleasure is likely one of the worst enemies of soccer. “A great professional must always be humble,” he stated. The secret is to mix the vainness essential to be a primary division participant and humility to combine into a bunch. No participant is massive if he doesn’t make his workforce massive. »»

Read too Luis Enrique, the triumph of conceptsA reminder that significantly resonates this season. Because a reputation emerges, in opposition to the tide of this individualist logic: that of Ousmane Dembélé. Winner of Ligue 1, the French Cup, but in addition of the Champions League, it might deserve this Ballon d’Or, exactly as a result of it didn’t play like a Ballon d’Or. In the ultimate of the Champions League, he most well-liked to serve Doué Doué or Khvicha Kvaratskhelia relatively than searching for the person glory which might have assured him the trophy. For 90 minutes, he acted as the primary defender of his workforce, harassing and disturbing the inside reminders as a substitute of saving for the offensive play phases. An altruistic philosophy that honors soccer and will serve for example.

The gamers now not resist the cult of the Ballon d’Or

The drawback is that the cult of the Ballon d’Or contaminates to the gamers themselves. Kylian Mbappé, but one of the crucial clever of his era, comes to think about this reward as one of many ends of his profession. No marvel: he grew up in a room lined with Cristiano Ronaldo posters, 5 -time winners. And but, what he completed within the World Cup closing in opposition to Argentina in 2022, the place he wore a collective revolt by signing a triplet in Mondovision, will undoubtedly be far more within the reminiscence of soccer than any Ballon d’Or.

After the collective coronation of PSG, Mbappé finds himself confronted with a contradiction. He likes to tackle this function of captain of the Blues, goals of embodying management in Real as within the French workforce. But he’s additionally caught up on this individualist logic, nourished by statistics and media debates.

He isn’t the one one. An entire era of gamers has grown up beneath this cult of particular person trophies, nourished by social networks and logics of private promotion.

To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer

Should we subsequently merely delete the Ballon d’Or? Maybe. Or higher, reinvent it. To put an finish to this fiction of the perfect participant on this planet to think about a trophy which might reward what makes the fantastic thing about soccer, a defensive hinge, a line of environments, a collective animation. Celebrate synergies relatively than ego.

In brief, discover the essence of a sport manufactured from balances and solidarities, removed from this race for particular person glory. Bertolt Brecht wrote: “Unhappy the nation that wants heroes. Football too, little question, who persists in making it yearly.