Chapter 439: Chapter 438: Does Young Master Kai Spoil The Plot As Soon As He Speaks? (Still need 270 monthly tickets, feeling helpless)
While setting a new record as the youngest ever to be named in the Golden Ball 30-man shortlist, he also broke the record for the youngest ever in the Golden Ball top 10!
That was a super record he couldn’t even break in the future!
In the final voting, Deng Kai received sixteen points, the same as three of the four players behind him.
To say he was tenth was rather to say he was seventh!
If one were to talk about being ranked lower, it was purely a matter of seniority.
Even... if it weren’t Deng Kai’s first time in the spotlight, his performance over the year would have earned him the Golden Ball without a question.
Being a six-time champion and winning MVP six times in a row—that was the kind of terror he represented!
But seniority plays a significant role in any industry.
This wasn’t simply about seniority; it was about influence.
When a star’s reputation reaches its zenith, they often have passed their peak performance and entered a decline—that’s the rationale here.
Letting the bullets fly is a very important thing.
Don’t ever think that valuing seniority is a bad habit; a combination of seniority and ability often provides the most reliable assessment.
Purely based on achievements, it’s easy for the strongest of one year to fail to make the shortlist the next. Once or twice might not matter, but over time, the list would lose its credibility.
So in theory, it’s very hard for a player listed for the first time to break into the top twenty.
But Deng Kai broke that unwritten rule.
He went straight into the top ten on his first attempt.
Even if not for Figo splitting some of the votes, he could have likely broken into the top five!
But alas, Figo did split some votes.
Being from Portugal just like Figo, those who opted not to vote for Deng Kai due to his lack of seniority, for the sake of balance, mostly decided to throw a few votes to Figo, accomplishing relative fairness.
This allowed Figo to make it into the top five of the Golden Ball despite relatively average performance last season and the presence of other stars splitting the limelight.
At the red carpet check-in, the host handed the microphone to Deng Kai, as per tradition, and asked him to share his excited feelings.
Deng Kai, "I am surprised to have ranked so high on my first entry into the Golden Ball nominee list. Over the past year, my success depended on the team’s success, which continually reminds me to do more for the team."
"At the same time, I also want to congratulate this year’s Mr. Golden Ball in advance."
The host asked, "Who do you think it might be?"
The top five wouldn’t show up on the red carpet but would directly drop in at the event instead.
Everyone had already figured out who the top five were by observing the red carpet list.
Kahn, Raul, Beckham, Figo, Totti—the Golden Ball winner would be one of these five.
Deng Kai, "To be honest, there was only one team that dominated all of Europe last year, and that was Lisbon Athletic. Of course, I’m not saying that I should win the Golden Ball, I know I need much more experience."
"What I mean is, whether it’s Raul, Kahn, Beckham, or Figo who wins the Golden Ball, I think any of them is deserving, and they indeed all merit the award."
Totti: ...
You just didn’t mention me at all out of the top five.
Is this a lifelong bias against Serie A?
My Roma went through so much effort to win the Serie A championship, and yet we don’t deserve the Golden Ball?
Deng Kai: Mainly because Batistuta split too many votes from you.
Totti: Raul, Figo, Zidane—They don’t split votes, huh?
Deng Kai’s words won him quite a bit of applause.
He was not complacent, but he timely pointed out what set him apart from a typical Golden Ball tenth place.
Emotional intelligence maxed out.
That’s how many saw Deng Kai.
Only Zidane and those in front of the TV set like Guardiola and Matthaus raised their eyebrows at his words.
Zidane instinctively felt that the order of the players’ names that Deng Kai just mentioned seemed... to have some secret meaning.
After experiencing "the Spain and Germany teams’ European Cup ranking predictions," Guardiola and Matthaus had a clear understanding of Deng Kai.
This fucker hardly ever shoots without aiming.
Could the ranking he just mentioned possibly be... the sequential ranking of the Golden Ball?
"Alright, thank you, Deng Kai, this way please... Next, let us invite the player who is ranked ninth in this year’s Golden Ball onto the red carpet. He is... Juan Sebastian Veron!"
The ninth place in the Golden Ball was a big surprise.
The White Witch, Veron.
If at the beginning of this season, his name had been placed here, there would have been no issue.
Of course, the same could be said for Mendieta’s name being here.
But this season, both Veron and Mendieta have encountered Waterloo at their new clubs.
Veron was okay, although he did not meet the expectations of the fans, he has not yet been completely proven to be a dud.
And Mendieta, thanks to Deng Kai and Sporting Lisbon, was already preparing to move on.
This was also why Mendieta did not appear on this year’s Golden Ball thirty-man shortlist.
Lazio’s exit from the Champions League, especially their performance in the last match of the Champions League, really deducted points.
Bear in mind that at this time last year, Mendieta was still ranked eighth in the Golden Ball!
In front of the TV, many fans expressed their incomprehension at Veron’s inflated ranking.
In fact, Veron’s ranking wasn’t particularly inflated.
Or rather, compared to the tenth-place Deng Kai, who the hell in the top nine of this year’s Golden Ball wasn’t inflated?
The eighth place in the Golden Ball went to Henry from Arsenal.
Last season, Henry made thirty-five appearances in the league, scoring seventeen goals. He appeared eighteen times in various cup competitions, scoring five goals and helping Arsenal to second place in the Premier League, runners-up in the FA Cup, and the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
He was selected for the UEFA Best Squad, UEFA Team of the Year, and so on.
Especially in the recent Arsenal versus Manchester United clash, he scored the crucial goal that turned the game around, helping Arsenal to defeat Manchester United.
Some fans have said this could possibly be Arsenal’s greatest goal of the season.
Because for the past three years, Manchester United have been the Premier League champions, with Arsenal finishing as runners-up three years in a row.
The seventh place in the Golden Ball went to Zidane from Real Madrid, the former Juventus star.
This ranking seemed a bit inflated, and it had a lot to do with his summer transfer to Real Madrid.
The sixth place went to Shevchenko from AC Milan.
With this, the red carpet ceremony concluded.
The camera turned to the inside of the venue.
This year’s fifth place in the Golden Ball was revealed to be Roma’s Wolf King, Totti.
Although Roma became the champions of Serie A last season, this was the best Golden Ball ranking Totti could achieve.
It was not Totti’s limit, but it was Roma’s limit.
The fourth place in the Golden Ball went to the Portuguese star Figo from Real Madrid.
Figo’s votes were very close to Totti’s, both in the fifty something but less than sixty.
Figo’s advantage was that many jurors out of conscience gave him the votes that should have gone to Deng Kai, but the disadvantage was that Real Madrid had brought in Zidane, a transfer even more sensational than his joining Real Madrid the previous year.
Naturally, Real Madrid’s award resources were also given to the Frenchman to some extent.
And furthermore... the key point was that Real Madrid’s own golden boy, Raul, had a very good chance of winning the Golden Ball.
[PS: Bringing five updates. We are just under three hundred votes shy of two thousand monthly votes, such a pity... For every thousand monthly votes, Taizi can hold a draw next month, usually for a hundred or two hundred yuan in cash, which is a benefit provided by Qidian to the authors. At one thousand seven hundred votes, seven hundred votes are wasted, which is really too painful; next month it will be a hundred less in pain!
Is there a big shot who can drop two hundred monthly votes, and I will continue to churn out updates from home tomorrow without going to tie the knot on the wedding certificate?]
