Edouard Mendy signed for Chelsea last summer and ended up keeping THIRTY FIVE clean sheets in FOURTY FOUR games for Chelsea.
Those are quite incredible numbers, there’s no two ways about it. Of course, along the way he also won the Champions League, let’s not forget
Yet when it came to the Ballon d’Or nominations, only Gigi Donnarumma was included as a goalkeeper on the shortlist of the top 30.
Speaking in quotes picked up by Football365, his international teammate and Liverpool star Sadio Mane wasn’t happy with the lack of recognition for Mendy, blaming it on racism:
“It is unacceptable. I do not understand… It’s a real shame that Edou isn’t one of them. He is the first African goalkeeper to win the Champions League,” Mane said while on international duty.
“We must continue to work and move forward. We have to do the double [the work] of some people to be well judged.
“Edou is a very positive person. We talked about it together. He will continue to fight to be part of it. For me, he has a place among these 30 players.”
Given those stats, and given what he won, it is indeed hard to understand why Mendy didn’t make it. Given how he’s risen from nowhere, he’s certainly lacking on the PR side that counts so much for these individual awards.
Or, maybe it is just plain racism.
