Any individual award Mbappe fails to win this edition is a robbery to the soul of football. Let us be honest. Yamal is good. A wonderkid. But no player was close to Mbappe. Not close. He won the World Cup Golden Boot. He won the UCL Golden Boot. 59 goals and 12 assists for Real Madrid. He did it on every stage.

13th of March, 2007. Old Trafford is not roaring. It's smiling. It's a celebration. Manchester United vs Europe XI. 50 years since the Busby Babes entered Europe. A charity night. A night for memories. The scoreboard says MU 2-1 EU. The result doesn't matter. There are three men in red standing over a ball. A little boy from Scholes. A captain named Neville with the yellow armband, number 2 on his back. And a kid. Skinny. Number 7. 22 years old. Hair gelled. Legs still learning how powerful they are. Cristiano Ronaldo. He takes four steps back. That familiar breath. Chest out. You know that stance. The world would come to know that stance for the next 20 years. The whistle blows. He doesn't look at the wall. He looks at the stars. And he hits it. Not a football. A comet. It goes up, and for a second it looks like he's missed. Like it's going over. The keeper doesn't even move. Because keepers know physics. And this ball does not obey physics. At the last possible moment, it remembers where home is. It dips. It swerves. It falls from the sky like it was called down. Top corner. No touch. No mercy. The net ripples. The crowd gasps and then laughs, that disbelieving laugh you only do when you see something too beautiful. But the official books? They wrote nothing. They wrote "Friendly. Unofficial." What a shame, What a shame indeed.