🎙 Special interview with France Football; Mbappé: Last season, no one was better than me; I vote for myself for the Ballon d’Or

I’ve been playing at the highest level for more than ten years, and the player I am today has had several different lives; my position, my playing system, and even my style of football have changed. I’m proud of this transformation, because a great player has to be able to adapt himself to modern football. Last season as well, when I look at my performance, I really don’t see a player who was better than me.

I vote for myself for the Ballon d’Or. I think I have enough reasons to win it; at the World Cup I made history and became the competition’s all-time top scorer. I know I haven’t won a big team tournament, but the Ballon d’Or is an individual award, and people never all agree on who wins it. I feel that this year could be my year.

For years, I’ve lived with the standard of “excellence,” and the things I do well are nothing new to people anymore; that’s why they look more for what I don’t do. If I don’t score, they ask why I didn’t score, and when I score a lot, they say maybe you’re harming the team; I don’t understand this logic. A player who scores is never a problem for a team, because you can’t win trophies without goals. I accept constructive criticism, but I won’t allow criticism to determine my decisions.

At Real Madrid, I know what is expected of me, and my goal is to both score goals and win trophies. Mourinho is a very intelligent coach; he knows what he wants and gives the player a clear path, and he has asked me to continue doing what I do best: scoring goals. I don’t attribute PSG’s successes after I left to my departure. They made their own path, and today they are one of the teams we have to beat in order to win the title.

For many years now, people have looked at me as a “chosen individual,” and naturally this image comes with a lot of pressure. France captaincy, the loss to Spain in the World Cup semi-finals, and all the discussions that form around me are part of this life. Even the jokes on social media that portray me as a “dictator” are sometimes funny, but when it comes to comparing with people who have caused human suffering in history, it’s no longer just a joke for me.

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