In life, there are the best kept secrets in the world, like the recipe for Coca-Cola, there are those that are less kept and, alongside, at an even higher level, there is the Balloon of or, where the suspense is about as unbearable as the outcome of your ping-pong match with grandma from the Gers. However, this year, France Football had done everything to ensure that the identity of the winner did not leak before the start of the ceremony.
The big winner himself, for the very first in the history of this trophy, was not aware of his upcoming victory. The goal being to avoid ending up with the winner, in the front row of the Théâtre du Châtelet, surrounded like a head of state on a diplomatic visit, and the losers, alone like solitude and pulling a face fifteen meters long. And again, when they deigned to show up for the ceremony.
Unfortunately for the organizers, the precautions were not enough and, as the day progressed, a rumor grew: announced as the big favorite for this 2024 Ballon d'Or, Vinicius was going to be beaten to the post by Citizen Rodri . Furious to see its foal doubled in the final straight, Real, which is renowned for carrying out frenzied lobbying every year for its players, chose to transform what was then only a hiccup into a real scandal, by canceling purely and simply the trip of his delegation to Paris.
Palpable discomfort at the Châtelet theater
Our colleagues from L'Equipe and their consultants tried to act as if nothing had happened, seeing the biggest club in the world boycott a ceremony that it is used to hosting, even though its scorer is expected to win, it hurts her. “It is not good for football that an entity like Real Madrid is not present at a gala of this size,” underlined, embarrassed, Luis de la Fuente, the Spanish coach and reigning European champion.
In the process, to make matters worse, Real decided to go to war, swords drawn, against the Ballon d'Or, through a press release very hot. “If the award criteria do not designate Vinicius as the winner, these same criteria should designate Carvajal as the winner. As this was not the case, it is obvious that the UEFA Ballon d'Or does not respect Real Madrid. And Real Madrid is not where it is not respected,” declared the club, winner of the Champions League in 2024, without any exaggeration.
Let us remember, however, that the organizers of the Ballon d'Or have no control over the election and that a hundred journalists from a hundred different countries elect the winners from a list of nominees. It is difficult to see what Uncle Florentino and his court can have to reproach France Football and UEFA. What matters in the end, the main thing being that the entire locker room follows the path traced by its president, which seems to have been the case after reading the tweets of several Madrid players, such as Eduardo Camavinga.
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During the ceremony, the embarrassment was palpable when awarding the trophy for best coach of the year, awarded to a certain… Carlo Ancelotti. “What a disappointment not to have him with us,” quickly evacuated Didier Drogba, the master of ceremonies barely embarrassed around in his waiter's suit. It remained to be seen whether Real's premonitions would come true. Imagine the audience's head for two minutes if Vinicius' name had finally come out of the hat.
Rodri's class eclipses Real's nervous poo
But unsurprisingly, it was Rodrigo who was the lucky one. We cannot blame the voters for having defied the predictions and injected a bit of old-fashioned romanticism into this trophy, in homage to a time when we did not exclusively crown scorers at 250 pawns per season. As for whether Carvajal, winner of the Champions League with Real and European champion with La Roja, also deserved to win, the debate is open. Rodri did not hesitate to pay tribute to his teammate in the selection, who remained in Madrid because of his “injury” (but of course).
“I received messages from friends who told me that ‘football won’. Thanks to all these midfielders, to Xavi, to Iniesta. We are often overshadowed by players in other positions, but tonight we are in the spotlight,” he said nicely. A class that Real Madrid will therefore not have had which, by choosing to sulk at its most pathetic, showed that we could be a big club with small manners.
