Chapter 1027 - 249: Golden Ball Award Ceremony
"It’s really unbelievable that someone can score like this, I even thought we were not playing the same game!"
At the Golden Ball Award ceremony, during the red carpet time, even though the organizers had specifically asked everyone beforehand to avoid mentioning Lu Yang.
But... superstars are superstars because they dare.
What’s more, Carrel, the King of Purple Lilies, naturally supported Lu Yang on the Golden Ball Award list.
Because Carrel himself was one of the victims of the unfairness of the Golden Ball Award.
Though he doesn’t hold the top honors of the World Cup and Champions League.
However, at his peak in Serie A, he was also a dominating super striker, clinching two Copa America titles and the Golden Boot.
Considering Serie A’s status at the time, awarding him the Golden Ball would have seemed a bit exaggerated, but being in the top three was undoubtedly justified.
Yet the peak of his career only yielded a sixth place in the Golden Ball!
Fifth in the World Footballer of the Year!
Undoubtedly, he was one of the award victims.
So when he walked the red carpet, he had no qualms about discussing Lu Yang with the media: "You know, in the past few seasons, twenty-six Golden Balls went to either a Serie A Silver Boot or Bronze Boot."
"And now, only fourteen rounds have been played, the match generally hasn’t even arrived!"
"My God, I don’t want to believe we’re playing the same league as him."
"Of course, my proudest moment was when everyone else still thought he was a nobody, I showed the world he’s the Crown Prince of Purple Lily!"
"People say his shooting is like mine, but I wish my goal count could be like his in the future!"
Carrel even started joking with everyone, proving his relaxed mindset this year.
Because despite Lu Yang’s momentous achievements, San Remo has remained around third or fourth place in Serie A’s standings.
Florence is actually this year’s true behemoth in Serie A, consistently holding the top spot without being surpassed!
Carrel has a strong premonition that this year’s Florence might really have a chance to fulfill their dream.
Despite lacking a league title and falling short of the top eight in the Champions League, Florence’s Golden Ball rankings this year are not high.
Roughly around the twenty-fifth position.
He lacks honors.
In terms of honors alone, Lu Yang’s name could certainly appear ahead of Carrel.
This is one of the challenges in award selection.
Because Carrel’s performance last year wasn’t bad at all.
Serie A Golden Boot!
Top three in Serie A!
Reached the knockout stages in the Champions League!
Copa America semi-finalist, but also the Copa America Silver Boot.
If such achievements do not make it to the top thirty of the Golden Ball, fans would sincerely be disappointed.
Looking at it from this angle, newcomers like "Lu Yang" really do have a hard time squeezing into the big list.
The quotes here refer to how the newcomers in Lu Yang’s class indeed have difficulties.
But Lu Yang... it wasn’t difficult.
Because his achievements over the past year were truly solid!
No matter what you want, he has it!
Yet even so, in the final Golden Ball list announced this year, Lu Yang ranked only thirtieth!
Yes!
The Golden Ball finally couldn’t withstand the pressure from the fans.
Four matches with sixteen goals, no one could prevent such a person from appearing at the Golden Ball Award ceremony.
So the Golden Ball sent an invite to Lu Yang.
It is known that Lu Yang boarded a flight the day before, presumably heading to Chatlet Theater in Paris, but the media didn’t find him at the airport.
In response, many media speculated that Lu Yang must be deliberately arriving a bit later.
According to the sequence, he was supposed to appear ten minutes ago and start walking the red carpet.
But clearly, he wants to "compete" for his stature.
Maybe he wants to irritate French Football.
In any case, Lu Yang definitely won’t adhere to French Football’s rules.
However, this approach seems somewhat... too childish.
It’s not dignified!
None of the media questioned whether Lu Yang really flew from Italy to Paris yesterday?
There was another flight directly to Los Angeles at the same time, which everyone deliberately or inadvertently overlooked.
"Did you come today for Mateo?" the reporter asked Carrel some personal questions.
Carrel nodded: "If it weren’t for Mateo, I wouldn’t have planned to come today. Not only Italian players, but Serie A players also are not treated fairly in this award."
The reporter felt slightly awkward, recalling Carrel’s grievances as well, ha ha.
Reporter: "So will you wait to go in together with Mateo?"
Carrel said: "That I won’t, considering his ranking is so high, I wouldn’t want to have my feet go numb waiting at the entrance."
Following Carrel was the Portuguese star Madeira, who had won the Golden Ball before and ranked twenty-third this year.
Over the past two years, Real Madrid’s overall performance hasn’t been good, aside from Lima and Zidane maintaining their ranks with national team performances, other top Real Madrid stars’ rankings have been declining.
But ordinary players at Real Madrid see their rankings surge.
This also proves that even for a world-class platform like Real Madrid, top-tier resources can only support one or two elite players and cannot sustain five or six players in achieving various global honors simultaneously.
Such is the cruelty at the top of the pyramid.
That’s also why Zidane is unwilling to completely step aside for Lima and Izalelt.
Such a move means slipping from the world top five to the top twenty or thirty.
Some people don’t care about these.
But Zidane cares a lot.
Reporter: "Real Madrid is now far ahead in points, what’s your goal for this season?"