Third in the 2023 Ballon d’Or, behind Erling Haaland and winner Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé obtained his best ranking in the supreme individual award. But the Parisian striker did not seem satisfied when he presented the trophy, and according to his coach Didier Deschamps, there was reason to be so.
“He would have deserved to win it. That he is third is a disappointment. Afterwards, there are votes from journalists from all over the world. I’m not saying that Messi didn’t deserve it and that Haaland wouldn’t have deserved it. He is young, but with what he has achieved, he would have deserved it. I don’t have to console him. He is disappointed. Afterwards, the votes… These are votes that come from almost everywhere. I was surprised to say the least, if not even a little more so, at the vote of some people. Not putting Mbappé in the top five is really… I’m not going to use the term dishonesty, but we’re not far from it anyway,” said the Blues coach in an interview for beIN Sports.
“DD” targets certain countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Bosnia-Herzegovina, China and Denmark which did not rank the 2018 world champion in the first five places of this edition of the Ballon d’Or . As a reminder, the PSG star accumulated a total of 192 points in this ranking, far behind the 357 points of Erling Haaland and the 462 points of the Argentine world champion Lionel Messi.