Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has waded into the Kvaratskhelia Ballon d’Or debate himself, and he has done it with the shrug of a man who knows the ballot papers are somebody else’s to fill in. Speaking after Paris Saint-Germain’s midweek win, the Georgian responded to public backing from Michel Platini and Toni Kroos by insisting he is “ready for anything” — while making it plain that the decision is out of his hands, as reported by PSG Talk.
The Kvaratskhelia Ballon d’Or case, minus a World Cup
The wrinkle in the number seven’s candidacy is not his club form. It is that Georgia were not at the World Cup, and a chunk of the electorate treats a summer tournament as the tie-breaker. Kroos has already said publicly that he would not hold that against him. Kvaratskhelia, asked about it directly, refused to campaign.
“Let’s see what life has in store for me, I’m ready for anything. Winning the Ballon d’Or without playing in the World Cup? I think it doesn’t depend on me, it depends on the people who decide.”
He was warmer on the endorsements themselves. “It’s a pleasure to be in the race to win it — in life, just like in football, I believe in everything,” he said. “When players and legends like Michel Platini and Toni Kroos say that I deserve this trophy it’s a real pleasure. Even if it were just one person on the planet, it feels good when they think you deserve something. It means I’m doing my job right, and I want to keep going at the same level.”
That is about as close as Kvara gets to lobbying. It is also, in fairness, a reasonable summary of where the race sits: nobody has run away with the last twelve months, which leaves voters weighing a Champions League defence against a World Cup summer.
Ten Parisians on a thirty-man list
Kvaratskhelia is not short of competition inside his own dressing room. PSG Talk counts ten Paris players among the thirty nominees — Ousmane Dembélé, Kvaratskhelia, Ferran Torres, Vitinha, Fabián Ruiz, João Neves, Nuno Mendes, Achraf Hakimi, Willian Pacho and captain Marquinhos — with nine of them having made last year’s list as the club won a second European Cup in a row. Désiré Doué and Warren Zaïre-Emery are the names Parisians will argue about; we covered how the Dembélé–Kvaratskhelia question splits the fanbase earlier this week.
Ten of thirty is the sort of statistic that only happens to a squad that has just retained the Champions League. It is also the sort of statistic that guarantees the vote splits.
The night he did not need to get off the bench
There was a neat illustration of that depth on Wednesday. Paris opened their title defence by putting six past Yaya Touré’s Slovan Bratislava at the Parc des Princes — a Ferran Torres hat-trick, two for Dembélé and a late Fabián Ruiz goal — and Kvaratskhelia was not used at all. Luis Enrique simply did not need him. You can read our full account of the 6-1 rout of Slovan.
For a Ballon d’Or contender, being an unused substitute is hardly ideal timing. For Les Parisiens, it is the point: this is a squad built so that a night off for one of the best wingers in Europe barely registers.
Form on the pitch, noise off it
The backdrop is less flattering. PSG are winless in Ligue 1 after three games — draws at Rennes and Lille, then a 2-1 defeat to Monaco — and sit seven points behind the leaders, per Get French Football News. Under Luis Enrique the club have made a habit of starting cold and peaking late, and two straight European titles buy a manager the benefit of the doubt, but the individual awards conversation lands awkwardly against that table.
Kvaratskhelia, whose future in Paris has been the subject of fresh contract talk this month, seems unbothered by any of it. The people who decide will decide. He will keep doing his job.
