On October 24 2026 15:19 DropBear wrote: Bournemouth dominated AC Milan in a European competition. Kind of a mental concept, let alone reality. Blow to the pride of Serie A for sure (Como's win notwithstanding)
There's a pretty wonderful clip of Bournemouth fans singing "Ruben Amorim, it happened again" in reference to Bournemouth beating Amorim's United 3-0 at some point. Even Amorim had a pretty good laugh at that one.
Well they 3-0'd Utd again as well, so there is that.
Ballon d'or tonight and anything but lamal winning is going to be rough in my book. Then again vozinha was nominated for best GK or whatever it was, so there is zero doubt these awards couldn't care less about the actual player quality.
I think currently Kane has a pretty fair shout, but that might be recency bias and I have no clue how players looked during the time window we are evaluating. I guess the world cup counts quite a bit, so Yamal wouldn't be a surprise by any means.
I do maybe hope Kane though. Yamal has plenty of time to chase the trophy whereas someone like Kane isn't going to be around on the world class level for that many years anymore.
I don't think Yamal is deserving at all, he didn't have a great season. Kane definitely is. Olise too. Being on the winning WC team shouldn't really matter - especially not when your WC is actually pretty mediocre.
Kane winning is the best outcome imo. He's been an absolute monster the past season.
On October 27 2026 08:17 Liquid`Drone wrote: I don't think Yamal is deserving at all, he didn't have a great season. Kane definitely is. Olise too. Being on the winning WC team shouldn't really matter - especially not when your WC is actually pretty mediocre.
Kane winning is the best outcome imo. He's been an absolute monster the past season.
Heavily disagree with this...and as much as I like Kane, he is not the best player in the world.
Not even the most successful in the last year (which seemed to be the reasoning used in recent years for some of the winners).
I think it makes sense, I can’t really think of an outstanding individual candidate who was ‘robbed’ or anything, most have negatives against them as well and Kane I think showed enough in the CL and WC despite not winning to just about scrape over the line
Kvaradona and Olise feel a bit low in the placings for me mind
As ever the award has its quirks, as I’ve said before an individual award in a team sport can get wonky depending on what people are weighting and valuing. I’d probably personally just go for outstanding individual performance for an individual award, and the 2nd highest goalscoring season overall from a player in a top 5 European league or whatever it was Kane hit seems to fit that bill
Kane has such a weird set of skills. I love that he's a got a Ballon d'or. A prolific number 9 with a magnifying glass accurate 60 yard pass who can get a shot on target from basically anywhere or any body position. If he were a bit more limber and flashy people would be comparing him to Ibrahimovic, but he never quite reached that level imho.
Kane deserved it 100% as well as Lewandowski a couple years ago when they scrapped it due to covid restrictions. Lewandowski was an attacking beast for Bayern every season and also when he played for Barcelona in his later years.
He was asked by some French talk show what's his favorite meme of himself and he said it's the video with his face on a "Chinese dictator", referring to this clip:
Well, China got super offended and way overreacted by suspending all broadcasts of La Liga games and of all matches featuring Mbappe from other competitions. He also lost several sponsorships with Chinese companies using his image. Now Mbappe, Real and La Liga are falling over themselves apologizing for it.
I’d be interested to know how much is outrage from everyday Chinese folks and how much is just coming from various authorities
Definitely seems a marked contrast between various Gulf States involved in European football, who’ll just turn a blind eye to things like displays of LGBT solidarity or whatever provided it’s not in their turf
I like that Kane has won. He has got everything but is a lot less flashy than the others. Yamal was a non-factor in the world cup and his season wasn't better than Kane's. Not sure why you would think he should have won. Mbappe as a close second makes sense. Olise should be higher, but overall this is agreeable.
EPT
