Manchester City midfielder Rodri has made a clear call on the Ballon d’Or discussion, identifying Paris Saint-Germain’s Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 and Vitinha as his picks after a season in which PSG dominated.<\/p>\n
Rodri’s view arrives amid a wider conversation about an open Ballon d’Or race, a contrast with years dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. His preference, though, is unambiguous.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ballon d\u2019Or is difficult,\u201d Rodri acknowledged. \u201cPSG has been the team of the season, and it would be hard not to give it to someone from that team. I\u2019m happy for [the club\u2019s manager] Luis Enrique.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see it go to Lamine or Pedri, but on sporting merit, it\u2019s Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 or Vitinha.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 emerges in Rodri’s assessment as the leading candidate after a dramatic year in attack. The France international is credited with 35 goals and 16 assists across all competitions, having shifted from a career on the wing into a central striker role as PSG sought to maximise his goalscoring output.<\/p>\n
Vitinha’s case is less about headline numbers and more about control and influence. He played a deeper, more understated role for PSG, pulling the strings in midfield, and he also contributed to Portugal’s international success by helping to steer his country to Nations League glory with what has been described as a sensational eye for a pass.<\/p>\n
Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal is likely to attract plenty of attention and votes after establishing himself as the club’s talisman at just 18 years old, but Rodri suggested the teenager may have to wait a little longer before claiming football’s top individual prize.<\/p>\n
Rodri’s comments underline a season in which PSG’s collective achievements have bolstered the personal cases of their standout performers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rodri says PSG pair Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 and Vitinha firmly deserve the Ballon d’Or on sporting merit over Yamal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,238,646],"tags":[593,962,963],"class_list":["post-2606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-manchester-city","category-trophy","tag-ballon-dor","tag-ousmane-dembele","tag-vitinha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}