Dembélé Names Kvaratskhelia Before the Ballon d'Or: Two Definitions for One Vote

In a press session, Ousmane Dembélé spent most of his time talking about someone else rather than about himself — even though, according to the circulating reports, he is the man currently holding the Ballon d'Or. He talked about Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, his team-mate at Paris Saint-Germain. Asked who deserved it most, he named the Georgian winger.

What is worth noting lies in the question he threw back at the organisers: what are the new criteria — is it dazzle and impact? One short sentence, placed on the most sensitive spot of any individual award vote.

Then the media dug out an earlier remark from Kylian Mbappé, in which he called someone “the chosen player”. Two men, two sentences, one subject. What began as a debate about an award slid into an exchange between two individuals. The frame narrowed very fast.

I read that item several times. It was aggregated from multiple sources, with visibly inconsistent dates: one line places the ceremony on 26 October, another claims Paris won the Champions League in two consecutive seasons. Those markers need verification before they can serve as a foundation. I keep them as raw material.

The backdrop is clear enough. Paris Saint-Germain is currently home to two leading contenders. Kvaratskhelia delivered 10 goals and 7 assists in 16 matches according to the figures quoted, roughly 1.06 goal contributions per game — an elite rate. Mbappé left Paris for Real Madrid, and his recent remarks place the two projects side by side, one old and one new.

Behind all of it sits an old question, as old as the award itself: what are people voting for?

This is where I want to pause a little longer.

Looking only at 10 goals and 7 assists in 16 matches, we see an attacker with a high output. But 16 matches is a narrow sample. It is almost certainly the sample of a European cup campaign rather than a full domestic season, because nobody counts a 38-round league with the number 16. The narrower the sample, the easier the rate is inflated. In this data set there is no xG, no xA, no PPDA to tell us how much is finishing quality and how much is luck.

In other words, we are handed an outcome while being starved of the process.

The more interesting part lies elsewhere: Dembélé himself is telling a very credible story of maturation. By his own account, he used to be the gifted but flashy type, and now he wants to be effective in everything he does. That claim has a basis. It is the familiar maturity curve of elite wingers: from dribbling a lot, dribbling beautifully, dribbling uselessly, to making the right decision and producing the final product. He is 28. He has been through the phase of being labelled an injury-prone talent.

But notice one detail: that self-description puts him directly against the very criterion of dazzle that Mbappé champions. One man says the award should reward dazzle. The other says value lies in effectiveness and in helping the team. Two definitions of beautiful football, rather than two people quarrelling.

At Paris, that also has a concrete tactical meaning. Kvaratskhelia and Dembélé both belong to the inverted-winger group, both prefer finishing to hugging the touchline, both want the ball at their feet in the inside channel. Two such players in one line-up create a problem of overlapping touch zones and of who vacates space for whom. That is a real problem, and it is absent from the story being circulated, because that story is busy counting goals.

From my experience watching matches across many seasons, individual award votes are rarely won by tactical argument. They are won by memory. And memory always leans toward dazzle.

I hold to my professional view: inverted wingers are flattening world football, while the traditional winger is being written off unreasonably. But I am not using this story to beat that drum. I tell it because it surfaces on its own.

The easiest trap is right here.

People remember a run past three shirts; few remember an off-ball movement that drags a centre-back out of position. Football is not read through the scoreline, but through the heartbeat of the people in the stands — and that heartbeat always beats faster in the beautiful moments. Once again, I find myself on the side of the expressions the camera usually misses.

But if so, I must turn the question back on myself. The goals-plus-assists criterion — the one public opinion is applying to this vote — is another form of dazzle, only coded in numbers. It is just as lazy as emotion. It also overlooks the left winger who runs 12 kilometres every match to hold the flank so someone else can dribble, then takes the bus home where nobody remembers his name.

So I do not see any award vote as a battle between right and wrong. I see two ways of remembering, and both fall short. Writing about football is sitting with people, hearing them tell the story of the match in which they were once themselves — not sitting and counting.

As for the quality of the debate: it is a product of the award cycle. A reigning winner publicly names a candidate; another man revives an old argument; forums and aggregator sites push it along. The heat will peak around the ceremony and then fade. What remains is an unanswered question: what exactly are the organisers rewarding.

When the pitch falls silent of shouting, only then do we hear football sigh. Today the pitch still has sound, but it comes from a microphone in a press room, not rising from the stands. The one thing I am certain of: a vote written by definition will outlive a vote written by name. If this year's ballot skips the question of what the criteria are, then winner and loser alike will still be waiting for another moment of transparency.