Harry Kane’s Ballon d’Or win this week has been the subject of plenty of discussion among a group of Barcelona fans who thought Lamine Yamal deserved it this year, but the teenager won his third consecutive Kopa Trophy as the world’s best young player instead and will have to wait another year to claim the big one.
Hansi Flick was asked about the topic at a press conference on Friday, and believes Kane deserved to win the award and was also full of praise for Yamal’s reaction to missing out on the Ballon
d’Or, his attitude in training, and his speech in support of Pau Cubarsí deserving to win the Kopa Trophy during the ceremony.
“Kane deserved it. You know my opinion of Lamine: he’s at the level to win this award. What I see is—and I told him and the team this—what he said about Cubarsí was great. Pau deserved [the Kopa Trophy]. Lamine won the last two years. Cubarsí played an incredible season and had an excellent World Cup.
“I feel very proud of Lamine. He reacted very well, in my opinion. In training, he was focused. That’s how academy players respond. His mentality is very good for the team. We accept it; I’m happy it’s over, and now we can focus on important things.”
I wholeheartedly agree with every word Flick said. Kane deserved the Ballon d’Or, Yamal did a great job in supporting Cubarsí, and I’m also very happy that this whole thing is over so we can focus on what actually matters: real football matches where eleven players come together as a team with a common goal to win games against another team of eleven players.
Individual awards in team sports are very stupid.
