Following the excitement and criticism over the exclusion of Bayern Munich’s national player Jamal Musiala from the Ballon d’Or, editor-in-chief Vincent Garcia of the magazine “France Football”, which awards the prestigious prize, has spoken out. In the weekend edition of the “Mediengruppe Münchner Merkur/tz” newspaper, he explained that Musiala’s talent was not being called into question just because the 21-year-old offensive player was not one of the 30 candidates that had been published.
“In fact, he was there in 2023 and was also nominated for the Kopa Trophy, which is awarded to the best young player. But like Jude Bellingham, his status has evolved and expectations were probably higher this year,” Garcia continued. “As a result, he was probably rated differently.”
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Musiala’s club reacted with great surprise to Musiala’s non-nomination. “I’m happy for every player who is nominated for the Ballon d’Or, but we at FC Bayern are very surprised that Jamal Musiala is missing from this list,” sporting director Max Eberl told the dpa. The Golden Ball is a special award in world football.
“Jamal was one of the outstanding players at the European Championships, was voted into the top eleven and was one of the tournament’s top scorers,” emphasised Eberl. “In addition, FC Bayern reached the semi-finals of the Champions League thanks to Jamal’s great performances. The fact that he is not even one of the 30 best players of the last season is completely incomprehensible to us.”
Bayern’s performance also a reason for magazine boss
In contrast to Musiala, the list from Germany includes Toni Kroos, who ended his career after the European Championship at home in the summer, Antonio Rüdiger from Real Madrid, Florian Wirtz from double winners Bayer Leverkusen and former Dortmund player Mats Hummels, who is continuing his career at AS Roma.
In his opinion, there are three main reasons why Musiala was not selected by the committee, explained the editor-in-chief of “France Football”: “Firstly, his lack of statistics in the Champions League, where he scored as many goals as Mathys Tel, for example. That is too little for a player of his calibre. He was also unconvincing in important matches such as the Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid or the European Championship quarter-final against Spain, where his performances were not catastrophic but rather neutral.”
The fact that Bayern had reached their worst ranking since 2011 did not help Musiala either. “I am sure that he will return to this list in the future,” said Garcia.
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