Jean-Pierre Papin thinks Kylian Mbappe talked himself out of the Ballon d’Or.
The Real Madrid striker finished second behind Harry Kane at the ceremony at the London Palladium on Monday 26 October, and the 1991 winner has traced that defeat straight back to the way Mbappe campaigned for the trophy.
Speaking on RMC’s Rothen s’enflamme this week, Papin was blunt about the damage done. The forward’s communication strategy, he said, had been catastrophic for his candidacy.
“It shows what kind of person he is,” Papin told the show.
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Papin reaches for the Ronaldo parallel
Papin then reached for a name every Real Madrid dressing room knows well.
“Mbappe reminds me a little of Cristiano Ronaldo: everyone else had to be at his service,” he said on RMC.
‘Me, me, me and myself’
The frustration had been building for weeks. In an earlier interview with Foot Mercato picked up by The Daily Star, Papin had already singled out the Mbappe pitch for the prize.
“I really do admire Kylian, he holds records, but at a certain point it all becomes about me, me, me and myself,” he told the French outlet.
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“The Ballon d’Or winner is decided by others.”
What tipped Papin over was Mbappe’s suggestion that nobody but him deserved the trophy, a stance he called too much, “far too much”.
Papin: Mbappe can still win it
Papin did not write Mbappe off. He told RMC the 27-year-old had the talent to lift the Ballon d’Or in future editions, and that second place in London should not be read as a last opportunity. Change the approach, Papin argued, and the award follows.
Kane became the first English winner of the men’s Ballon d’Or since Michael Owen in 2001. Mbappe, who turns 28 in December, now returns to a Real Madrid season in which his next shot at the prize is already a year away.
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