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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparksquidme on 2025-08-08 08:46:28+00:00.
Now? Scott McTominay, Ballon d’Or nominee, officially one of the best footballers in Europe, a line to make a United fan choke on their cornflakes. A nomination as the final act and recognition of a debut season which became absurdly fantastic and rewarding. A guy could get lost in Naples, drowned by the fanaticism and pressure of delivering for one of the most suffocating and intense fan bases in football.
Instead McTominay rose to become an icon, a figure far greater than most could have imagined possible across the years when English football largely dismissed him as a limited utility guy, useful to have around without being front of house material.
Italy got the surging, unbridled McTominay 2.0. A dozen goals in 34 league games for Napoli and the city which idolises Diego Maradona happily made headspace for a new darling. Barely a week went by without news emerging of some startling new McTominay goal or triumph
McTominay with the Serie A trophy and league player of the season award after a superb campaign with Napoli
He is a Serie A champion, the most valuable player of the Italian league season, the recipient of player and goal of the month awards, and now he has a puncher’s chance in the Ballon d’Or. Perhaps this will be the year of Ousmane Dembélé as a driving force for Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain. The Barcelona pair Lamine Yamal and Raphinha are heavyweight candidates too. The Premier League is represented by Virgil van Dijk, Alexis Mac Allister and Mohamed Salah from Liverpool, Arsenal pair Declan Rice and Viktor Gyokeres, Manchester City’s Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer of Chelsea. England men Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham are on the list too. In terms of sheer impact and emergence over the season, only the 18-year-old Yamal surpasses McTominay. It’s about the company you keep.
It seems reasonable to wonder if he will ever stop growing. Over the course of a couple of years, about a decade ago, he spurted from a runtish 5ft 6ins to a strapping 6ft 4ins. It was the making of him as a footballer. At 28 he has grown again, in profile and celebrity this time. This news underlines his status as the biggest star in the Scotland team — sorry Andy Robertson, sorry John McGinn — and by one measure the biggest success story the country has produced in nearly four decades. OK, “produced” is doing some heavy lifting given he was born and raised in Lancaster and has never played a minute in Scottish club football, but his dad Frank, from Helensburgh, shaped where his boy’s allegiances lie.
The old European Footballer of the Year award, as it was known, has been won only once by a Scottish player. After Denis Law’s great achievement in 1964, Jim Baxter, Jimmy Johnstone, Billy Bremner, Graeme Souness and Gordon Strachan all received subsequent nominations and Kenny Dalglish was runner-up in 1983. The last Scot to get on the shortlist was Ally McCoist in 1987. That’s why McTominay’s nomination is a big deal.
It’s amusing to think that when the first approach came from Napoli the depth of his connection to United — he has always been painstakingly respectful since his departure — meant there must have been a moment when he considered staying there. Maybe give it one more go, maybe see if Erik ten Hag could be convinced. Not every move works out, not everyone gets a reward for uprooting and throwing themselves headfirst into an entirely unfamiliar culture, but McTominay’s decision transformed his career and his life. Let’s just assume that as he sits with his feet up of an evening, looking out as the sun sets across the Bay of Naples, he isn’t losing too much sleep about whether he ought to have stuck around at Carrington. Of course, letting a Ballon d’Or contender go for just £25million and then having their worst season in years felt very Manchester United.