This year's Ballon d'Or race has three men in the frame. One is trying to talk his way to the award. Another has been dragged into the same game of statements. And the third has produced a season so complete that I struggle to see how he could lose.
The first is Kylian Mbappé, the second Lamine Yamal, and the third Harry Kane.
Mbappé chose the war of words. He has talked about the award more than once, insisting he feels capable of winning it and putting it among his near-term goals, before reaching the point of declaring that he would vote for himself.
This is not self-confidence, from where I sit. Every great player needs confidence, but Mbappé's has curdled into selfishness. He treats the Ballon d'Or like a personal election campaign, as if repeating his own case will somehow make his season better than it was, or drag his club out of their current mess.
What grates most is where this rhetoric comes from: a player supposed to be one of the biggest stars at Real Madrid, the storied club that finished last season without a major title. The question inside the white corridors should be why Madrid failed to deliver what was expected. Instead it has become: why isn't Mbappé getting the Ballon d'Or? Madrid's situation has been reduced to a side detail, as if losing titles does not trouble the Frenchman as long as his personal goal tally gives him fresh material.
I am not claiming to read what is going on inside Mbappé's head. I am talking about the image he has created for himself with his statements.
Even Christophe Dugarry, one of France's heroes at the 1998 World Cup, criticised this way of demanding an individual award, and attacked the shift of the conversation from the team and the trophies to personal glory.
He did not deny Mbappé's value. But he felt the way the player presents himself for the award looks childish and pitiful.
That criticism strikes at the heart of the problem.
Mbappé wants the Ballon d'Or to be his answer whenever he is asked about the absence of trophies. He ignores that the value of any season cannot be reduced to the number of goals a player has scored, but rests on his value and impact.
If it were only a matter of numbers, then why shouldn't Harry Kane be the winner?
Kane scored 73 goals for Bayern Munich and England in a single season, the second-highest scoring rate for a player in a European season since the start of the century after Lionel Messi. He won the European Golden Boot, scored 36 goals in the German league, 61 goals for Bayern across all competitions, and added six goals with England at the World Cup.
But even these numbers do not explain the full value of Kane.
Many do him an injustice when they reduce his season to the number of goals.
Kane is not just a striker who finishes off the attack. He starts it too, dropping back to receive the ball, linking the team's lines, opening up spaces with his movement, drawing defenders in, and passing at the moment that lets his team-mates move into more dangerous areas.
In the German league alone, Kane created 39 chances for Bayern, an exceptional figure for a central striker. This did not come at the expense of his scoring. It happened in parallel with him scoring 36 goals in the competition.
That is exactly what makes me lean towards Kane, because he does not make himself better at the expense of his team-mates.
Rather, he makes his team-mates better alongside him.
When Kane drops back, he opens up space for the player coming in from the wing.
Pull the heart of the defence with him and the path opens for another player.
Receiving the ball between the lines, he does not always hunt the moment that adds a goal to his statistics. He looks for the pass that makes the whole attack more dangerous.
That is why his impact shows up in more than the number of his goals and assists. It shapes the whole team when he is present.
Bayern themselves described him as a striker who combines scoring with playmaking, who drops back to receive the ball, creates spaces for his team-mates, and helps with pressing and tracking back when the team needs him.
Then comes the part that makes the comparison with Mbappé even more troubling for the Frenchman.
Kane did all of this without turning the Ballon d'Or into a personal cause.
He did not need to tell the world that he would vote for himself.
Nor did he repeat that he was capable of winning.
Every interview did not become a fresh platform to defend his entitlement.
After a season in which he scored 73 goals, he simply said the decision was in the hands of the voters, and that his focus had shifted to the following season and what he could achieve with his club and his national team.
That is the difference between a player who chases the award and a player who chases performance.
As for Lamine Yamal, he has all my respect for his technical level with Barcelona this season, which he crowned with the award for best player in La Liga.
The gifted youngster produced a stunning season with Barcelona, showing once again that he is an exceptional player, compiling striking attacking numbers and contributing intensely and brilliantly to his team's title.
He then won the World Cup with Spain, but
His record there was never ideal, especially as his individual impact in the global tournament did not come close to half the level he showed with Barcelona, for several reasons, the most important a serious injury before the World Cup.
But Yamal also fell into the same trap of statements.
That is even more unfortunate, because he could simply have let his talent, his numbers and his titles speak for him.
At first, Yamal tried to present a different image.
He spoke about how he did not need to ask journalists to vote for him, as if to say he was not part of the campaign of statements Mbappé is waging.
Then things changed. First he said that Mbappé and he were the two best players in the world.
Next he said he deserved the Ballon d'Or this year because of what he had achieved.
Later interviews saw him explain why he believes his style of play is his strongest argument for winning the award.
Here I strongly disagree with him, not because he does not deserve to be a candidate, but because I would have preferred him to leave the answer to the pitch.
When you are nineteen years old and possess this talent, you do not need to announce that you are one of the best players in the world.
And when you are a world champion, a league champion, with wonderful numbers, you do not need to start a battle of "I deserve more than the rest" yourself.
Better to let others say it about you.
In the end, Yamal has not become any less talented because of his statements. But he has become, like Mbappé, part of a war of words the Spaniard never needed in the first place.
Most importantly, Yamal's talk about his entitlement does not solve the fundamental problem: the World Cup was an enormous collective success for Spain, but the player's individual impact in the tournament was not as strong as the level he showed with Barcelona.
This is a point that must enter into the evaluation of the season, just as titles and numbers do.
After all this, I should say I do not see belittling Yamal as necessary to defend Kane.
Nor do I see ignoring Mbappé's numbers as logical.
But when I put everything on the table, the picture becomes clear.
Mbappé has scored a lot, yet he asks us to focus on his goals and forget the rest of the picture.
Yamal has entertained the world and delivered a huge performance, but he did not impose himself to the same degree at every stage of the season.
Kane, though, has brought together almost everything, and was among the best at all levels and in all tournaments.
He scored, created, opened up spaces, raised the level of his team-mates (and Bellingham at the World Cup is a fine example), led the attack, was the first to track back in defence, won titles, and shone with his national team.
And after all that, he did not fill the world with shouting to convince us that he deserves the award.
Here the identity of the Ballon d'Or winner becomes, in my opinion, tied to a very simple question: who produced the most complete season?
If that is really the question, then Harry Kane has an answer that is very hard to ignore.
Mbappé can talk about the Ballon d'Or until he is exhausted.
Yamal can amaze us with his talent until the very last moment.
But Kane did something more important.
He made football itself talk about him.