The international football landscape is currently witnessing an unprecedented phenomenon where narrative completely supersedes reality. Weeks before the first whistle of the upcoming tournament has even blown, sports media outlets and prominent pundits have already constructed a definitive script for the conclusion of the season. The prevailing sentiment echoing through television studios and sports columns is simple, absolute, and deeply flawed: if the French national team wins the tournament, Kylian Mbappe will automatically lift the Ballon d’Or.
This pre-emptive coronation is not merely premature; it represents a fundamental decay in how individual sporting merit is evaluated. The mainstream media is actively conditioning the public to accept a narrative before watching a single minute of actual football. Football analysts are essentially claiming to read the future, predicting that Mbappe will inevitably break historical goal-scoring records and claim football’s ultimate individual prize regardless of his actual performance on the pitch. This intense media bias completely ignores a crucial sporting reality: football is a team sport, and France possesses other world-class talents who have enjoyed vastly superior club seasons.
The obsession with forcing a Kylian Mbappe narrative sends a highly toxic message to the rest of the French squad. It implies that even if Mbappe performs poorly—reminiscent of his disappointing displays during Euro 2024—he will still receive the credit for a collective victory purely because of his massive media footprint and commercial appeal. This is an insult to athletic integrity. A football team cannot function healthily when the media establishes a hierarchy where one player’s marketing power elevates him above his peers, no matter how poorly he plays on the pitch.
This relentless media campaign is particularly unjust when contrasted with the phenomenal season of Ousmane Dembele. While the press remains hyper-focused on Mbappe, Dembele has quietly built an incredibly compelling case for football’s top honors. Dembele is coming off a sensational campaign with Paris Saint-Germain, securing back-to-back Champions League appearances and earning the prestigious title of Ligue 1 Player of the Year. For international voters who do not watch every single domestic match—journalists voting from Panama, Pakistan, or Norway—Dembele’s resume is undeniably superior. He has consistently carried his team during critical knockout stages, delivering massive performances in the Champions League quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final match itself. On paper, Dembele possesses a trophy cabinet from this season that makes a mockery of the idea that Mbappe is the undisputed favorite.
Furthermore, the emergence of elite talents like Michael Olise adds another layer of depth to the French squad that the media consistently overlooks. Yet, the current media landscape operates under the assumption that these players exist merely as supporting actors in the Kylian Mbappe show. This dynamic creates a dangerous tactical and psychological environment within the national team camp. Reliable internal reports confirm that Dembele is entering the tournament with intense focus and hunger, fully aware that a dominant international performance could secure him back-to-back Ballon d’Or trophies. He has the drive to win, and he has earned the right to chase that glory.
When a squad contains multiple players harboring legitimate individual ambitions, a manager’s primary task is to harmonize those egos for the collective good. However, the external pressure generated by the media risks turning this healthy competition into a destructive internal war. The psychological burden placed upon Mbappe by these grand media predictions could have a devastating impact on his style of play. When Mbappe feels the desperate need to fulfill media expectations, chase individual statistical records, and secure his legacy, he frequently reverts to a highly detrimental style of football. He begins to overplay, hog possession, force impossible individual actions, and ignore tactical discipline.
An individualistic, stat-chasing Mbappe is a sporting calamity for any team. It disrupts passing lanes, stalls attacking momentum, and frustrates teammates who are left making unrewarded runs. If Mbappe enters the tournament obsessed with scoring the five goals required to shatter historical scoring records while simultaneously trying to secure a Ballon d’Or narrative, his performance could easily alienate the rest of the squad. Players like Dembele and Olise will not quietly tolerate a teammate who treats a national team tournament as a personal marketing campaign.
True football purists must reject these lazy, media-driven clichés. The distribution of individual awards should be a reflection of performance across an entire season and throughout the duration of a tournament, not a reward for having the most Instagram followers or the loudest media advocates. If France goes on to lift the trophy through a collective team effort where goals are distributed evenly among players like Dembele, Olise, and Bradley Barcola, there is absolutely zero sporting justification for handing the Ballon d’Or to Mbappe over Dembele. Dembele’s club achievements, combined with an equally competent international tournament, would make him the far more deserving recipient.
Fortunately, there are still voices within the French camp focused purely on collective glory rather than individual marketing campaigns. Defending champions like Malo Gusto have publicly emphasized a team-first mentality, stating that his sole objective is to give absolutely everything for the shirt, even if it means finishing every match with severe physical exhaustion, to bring another star to the nation. Gusto correctly noted that while heavyweights like Spain, Brazil, and Portugal possess immensely talented squads, France has the depth and quality to go all the way—provided they play as a unified collective.
The ultimate tragedy of the modern sports media landscape is its desire to turn a beautiful, unpredictable team game into a predictable, celebrity-driven reality show. The tournament must be played on the pitch, not inside the marketing offices of sports media executives. It is time to stop crowning players based on hype and corporate agendas. Let the matches begin, let the players compete, and let the ultimate sporting rewards be earned through sweat, tactical excellence, and genuine merit—not through a pre-written media script.
