The triple French Ballon d’Or, Michel Platini, was present in Italy to respond at length to an interview with the Gazetta dello Sport. For him Messi and Ronaldo should never have left Spain, and he believes that Kylian Mbappé is the worthy successor to his two superstars. However, he believes that he has no real successor: “Me, I don’t have an heir because there are no more No. 10s, but distant leaders like Jorginho and Pirlo. Maybe in today’s football I wouldn’t play…”
The French cites the example of the Italian midfielder Chelsea and it is not without reason. Asked about Lionel Messi’s last Ballon d’Or, the 1984 European champion believes that the Argentinian genius should not have won this distinction for the seventh time: “no. Who won the Champions League and the Euro? Jorginho». The Italian-Brazilian had indeed won the two biggest competitions of the season but had finally finished behind Messi and Lewandowski in the classification of the Ballon d’Or 2021.
