Regragui Defends Mbappé: A Straight Word Amid the Ballon d'Or Storm

Russia 2026 was so cold that I remembered every breath of the stands for four years afterward. Here in Da Nang now, rewatching Walid Regragui's interview on Canal+'s CFC programme, that cold returns in a different form. The Morocco national team coach sits there, no evasion, no script, and speaks about Kylian Mbappé with a line that made me rewind twice.

"At least he isn't a hypocrite."

That is how Regragui defended his former player — a man placed at the centre of every argument after declaring he deserves the Ballon d'Or for what he called a historic season. A short line, but it carries far more than people usually assign to it.

The controversy began with Mbappé himself. The Real Madrid forward, in a recent statement, insisted he deserves the Ballon d'Or for what he did last season — what he calls "a historic season". In modern football, when a player speaks that plainly, reactions split into two camps: those who praise the confidence, and those who call it arrogance.

Regragui stands with the first. More than defending, he widened the conversation by listing a string of possible contenders: Kvaratskhelia, Harry Kane, Lamine Yamal, Dembélé, Olise, Fabián Ruiz. That list is notable for a specific reason: nearly all of them are attacking or creative players. No defender, no holding midfielder, no goalkeeper.

That is not a small detail. It reveals how the Ballon d'Or debate is being shaped — not by tactical systems, but by moments of brilliance in front of goal. Regragui, speaking as a coach, cannot escape that frame either. A season opens with a heartbeat in a press room, before the first whistle ever blows.

What matters is that he does not try to turn the debate into a trial. He speaks of the award as an open race. "It's still wide open," he stresses. And that openness is a more revealing signal than the name of any winner.

This is where I want to pause. As a beat reporter of more than thirty years, I have sat in enough press rooms to tell a prepared line from a real reaction. When Regragui speaks about Mbappé, there is a detail no stat sheet holds: he does not defend the record with numbers.

He defends the character.

For a coach, that is a striking choice. Normally, when someone is questioned over the Ballon d'Or, the defender pulls out goals, assists, trophies. Regragui does not. He moves the focus to another question: is it wrong for a player to speak plainly about his ambition? And he answers with Mbappé himself — a man who at least is "not a hypocrite".

I have seen this kind of defence many times, but rarely at the level of an individual award. It mirrors how coaches in Da Nang defend players after a defeat: not by talking about the score, but about the look in a player's eyes as he enters the dressing room. Football runs on human relationships before it runs on tactics.

The truth is, lines like Regragui's are not aimed only at the public — they are aimed at the player himself. A striker at the peak of his career does not need another coach telling him to be humble. He needs someone who understands that public ambition and professionalism can coexist. Regragui, who once led Morocco to one of the greatest achievements in African football history, understands that better than most.

There is an aspect rarely mentioned. Watching Mbappé's rhythm in Real Madrid colours recently, I noticed a small detail: the number of times he drops deep to receive the ball has fallen, while the number of times he accelerates into space behind the defensive line has risen. That is the mark of a player shifting from the role of one who joins the play to one who finishes it. This kind of shift usually comes with a player starting to think about his legacy — and at 27, Mbappé is right at that threshold.

On pure data, the "historic season" claim can be tested through goals, assists, the weight of trophies, and form in major tournaments. But that equation can only be solved with specific data, not with belief. Crucially, Regragui does not try to solve it. He moves it to another dimension — the human one, not the scorecard one.

From the outside, the easiest reaction is: "Of course he defends Mbappé, the man is his former player." Or: "It's just diplomatic talk from a coach keen to keep a relationship with a star." This reading sounds reasonable, but it misses something important.

Regragui has no special reason to defend Mbappé on French television. He coaches Morocco, Mbappé plays for Real Madrid, and the two are not inside the same direct interest system. If he chose silence, no one would blame him. That he spoke — and spoke specifically, without evasion — says something about how he sees football.

The blind spot of outsiders lies here: they read Regragui's line as a statement about Mbappé, when in fact it is a statement about football itself. About whether a player has the right to say "I deserve it" without being branded arrogant. About whether the truth, however hard it sounds, deserves defending.

I have seen the opposite many times. Young players in Da Nang, after training, sit silent out of fear of saying what they truly think. That silence does not make them more professional — it only makes them harder to read. And in football, a player who is hard to read in the dressing room is usually hard to read on the pitch.

The question Regragui leaves behind is not whether Mbappé deserves the Ballon d'Or. The question is: are we demanding of players a humility we do not practise when we judge them?

As the season rolls on and the trophy race sharpens, I will watch for something more specific than numbers. I will watch how many coaches dare to do what Regragui did — defend a player not with a record sheet, but with the truth about the person.

Because in the end, audiences remember goals; I remember the eyes of a substitute when the final whistle blows. And sometimes, in a cold press room, one straight sentence is enough to warm an entire season.