BALLON D’OH!
Isn’t modern football just super? We’ve got superclubs, super-agents, Super Sunday, supercomputers, even – we’re not making this up – super-lawyers. And now, Real Madrid, a club that prides itself on conquering new ground, has ushered in the age of the super-sulk. Madrid effectively boycotted last night’s Ballon d’Or ceremony, no doubt setting a precedent for future club-wide tantrums, when they heard a whisper that Vinícius Júnior wasn’t going to win the big prize.
It went instead to Manchester City’s Rodri, who became only the second player born in Spain, and the first true No 6, to win the men’s award. Our cousin, Actual Journalism Daily, says Madrid were planning a five-hour broadcast on their TV channel and had arranged to send 50 people to the do in Paris. On the night: nada. Zilch. Sweet bugger all. Madrid did win three big awards – they were team of the year, Carlo Ancelotti was coach of the year and Kylian Mbappé shared the Gerd Müller trophy with Harry Kane for his goalscoring exploits – but there was nobody from the club there to collect or even acknowledge them.
Now look, Vinícius is one of Football Daily’s favourite players; we’ve been prattling on about him for years, long before you peasants. But the way Madrid are behaving, you’d think he was the lovechild of Diego Maradona and Roy Race who notched 812 goals last season. Let’s look at Vinícius’ 2023-24 numbers. He was the joint-eighth top-scorer in La Liga, behind, among others, a Norwegian fella who couldn’t get a game for Crystal Palace a few years ago. In the Champions League, the Brazilian scored six goals, one more than Stoke reject Joselu, who played 628 minutes fewer. At the Copa América he scored twice in the group stages, then got himself suspended and missed the quarter-final defeat to Uruguay.
Gratuitous presentation of stats aside, Vinícius had a brilliant season and could easily have won it. But then, so could Jude Bellingham, and Rodri was a deserving winner. It’s hardly akin to giving the 1986 World Cup Golden Ball award to Hans-Peter Briegel or Peter Reid. Also, it’s a bloody vote, not a unanimous decision made by a few mysterious old duffers over a five-hour lunch. You’d think Madrid might have more respect for the importance of the No 6 position, given their egomaniacal decision to sell Claude Makélélé in 2003 was the start of an 11-year Big Cup drought, in which they spent most of the time looking down their nose in bemusement at teams that had just put them out in the last 16.
History will surely record that Monday’s monumental act of pettiness was Madrid’s worst for at least 48 hours. Maybe this collective loss of noggin occurred because their heads were still spinning from Saturday’s humiliation at the hands of Barcelona’s under-eights. Perhaps the president, Florentino Pérez, wasn’t thinking straight because he’d just been told that somebody had enrolled Kylian Mbappé in the Eden Hazard Motivational School. And maybe, unconsciously, Pérez realised it was now or never for Vinícius because Lamine Yamal is going to win the next 23 Ballons d’Or.
“If the award criteria doesn’t give it to Vinícius as the winner, then those same criteria should point to Carvajal as the winner,” said Madrid in a statement, refusing to acknowledge the concept of the vote lest it weaken their argument. “As this was not the case, it is clear that Ballon d’Or-Uefa does not respect Real Madrid. And Real Madrid does not go where it is not respected.” That could make a few away games tricky to organise.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You hear stories about people’s families, dads, uncles, grandads and it just hits home. People might be getting bored of me on social media, posting my runs on X and Strava, but we’re doing it for a reason: to raise awareness and for people to understand this disease is taking too many lives” – Doncaster Rovers manager Grant McCann chats to Ben Fisher about the unexpected joys of running 10km a day for the annual Prostate United challenge.
“To be fair to the Real Madrid players, if they didn’t even turn up to the Bernabéu for el clásico, it’s no surprise they didn’t go to Paris just for some awards ceremony” – Noble Francis.
“When I was eight, I flounced off to my bedroom to cry after not getting the biggest slice of cake at my own birthday party. Real Madrid were founded in 1902, making them somewhat older. But recent events invite the reader to judge who is the more childish” – Charles Antaki.
The “Caley Thistle go ballistic…..” headline is a classic, but my favourite is from the April 1979 European Cup semi-final first-leg match between Nottingham Forest and Cologne. Yasuhiko Okudera came off the Cologne bench to score a late equaliser in the 3-3 game. The Herald headline was ‘Forest Sunk By Japanese Sub’” – Jim Scullion.
“Best headline of all time was indisputably Goal’s risque comment on the failure of Juventus to beat Belarusian team Bate Borisov in a Champions League game in Turin: ‘Old Lady unable to master [snip! – Football Daily Ed]” – Adrian Irving.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Jim Scullion, who lands a Football Weekly scarf. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
