Can We Win The Ballon d'Or with Anthony Martial?

you might remember when Manchester United agreed to sign Anthony martial there was a 75 million pound ballondor Clause that was part of the deal it's crazy to think about this in 2024 but martial could have had the career that mbappe is having right now he's out of contract this summer he's not played for nearly two years but can we take over Anthony martial's career getting back into the France Squad and even competing for the balandor that's today's challenge no matter what you think of Martial you can't deny that about 6 years ago he he briefly looked like he could be the piece of the puzzle that was missing from Manchester United's team if we want to play in a World Cup we'll only have two seasons to get martial back into that France Squad because Manchester United are going to refuse to extend our contract and we're stuck at the club for at least the first season it's kind of ironic that the transfer that was meant to start our rise to the top of football actually saw both our career and the entire club we were at stagnate for a decade but with 13 appearances and just one goal in our last season at United a contract officially expired this means that we need to get our next move absolutely spot on it needs to be a team that has no Strikers that are better than us one that will play us in nearly every match and one that is at a high enough level to prove that we can still compete in an elite League I think you could forgive us for looking at Saudi Arabia where we've seen Karen Benzema and allanon maximan doing so well we could stay in England too looking to move to somewh like Forest Everton or Southampton we could move back to France and getting the squad like Lucas Hernandez has done but we've got one offer that we really like ra bets have revived a few french careers in the past decade so we'll be joining Nabil for on the Spanish South Coast our attributes aren't great anymore after not playing for a year we've dropped down to 74 overall but with a few successful months of Bettis I think we could probably get up to about 78 by the end of this year we need to prove our worth in preseason because this is 70-year-old Manuel pelini's last year as a manager we're just going to have to focus on winning the striker spot from his longtime favorite Willian Jose when the news broke of his joining ra betst the fans were really not on our side in 2022 martial had played a season at bettis's biggest rival seval and this hostility made adapting to Spain even harder the first game of our Spanish return was against Real Madrid and it looks like we've not actually done enough in preseason to earn the shirt we can't let this bother us though so we agree to play a few games for the B Team where we do score a few goals and focus on getting our sharpness back back with the main team we finally get our chance Off the Bench in a Europa League game against Rangers this was a game where we simply have to dominate and of course in typical Anthony martial style we do exactly that this isn't enough to earn as a League start but for the first time in over two years we get to run off the bench and make a La Liga appearance rather than playing us through the middle Pelini decides to shoe horn Us in on the wing and while again we don't score or assist our performance was actually so much better than both Willian Jose and B geia and Glazier who have turned out to be our two biggest Rivals for the starting Striker spot clearly to get back in the France Squad we're going to need a lot of look and we're going to need to improve quite a lot after a few consecutive appearances here and there to help see out matches we get our biggest break Pelini has seen enough of Mark rocker in Midfield and he switches from 4231 to 442 we have to take this opportunity because suddenly with two striking spots it's going to be a direct battle between us and Willian Jose to be the left striker in this 442 we put in extra effort in training sessions and for the first time ever martial scores a goal in Spain which banishes our awful lone spell from everybody's memory we're starting games we're scoring goals and Anthony martial is finally enjoying playing football once again they say form is temporary and class is permanent and our performances in November and December slowly start to prove exactly that we grabed six goals in 10 games and we've helped ra better Le frog seeval to be firmly in the Champions League spots clearly we're not playing like a 74 rated player anymore and by the winter break we've already upgraded our rating by three points up to a 77 we're back to where we left off in Manchester but with another 18 months of these performances who knows maybe we'll be rated where we were when we dominated defenses as an 84 rated 22y old striker of course Even after spending four months forcing our way back into the betters team we're nowhere near the French national team squad we're behind Killian mé Olivia jiru Anton Griezmann Christopher anunu even Nabil fakir Alexandra lacazette and II wahi think they're in a better position than us for the squad what can we do to make ourselves stand out well about two years ago we stopped asking to play on the wing so why not adapt our game and go back to playing like that because that's exactly what France could use as mbapp likes to start on the left and could inside why don't we learn to start in the middle and drift out left to the Wing having some versatility never hurt anyone's claim for a national team spot Manuel Pelini also agrees with us and for the last few games of the Season we rotate between being a left midfielder and the left striker in the 442 we don't have the pace to get past young fullbacks anymore but we have the experience height and physicality to still be able to dominate some of them it's not perfect but we have to do everything we can to get in that France Squad we have a lot of gratitude to Bettis for playing us at all and also revising our career but our agent tells us we do have a few options this summer there's a few Bundesliga clubs interested in us and have set as targets to prove that we can play on the wing Monaco would be interested in reuniting us with the south coast of France and Premier League club West Ham are also interested in Anthony martial loyalty is important to martial and I don't think any of these are good enough of an opportunity to say yes to bettis's decision to play two Center fors this season has already given us the ideal chance to get tons of minutes at a good team in La Liga Anthony martial is happy to stay our position in the squad isn't guaranteed at all anymore though because with a new Striker and a new left Winger both joining the club early in August we're going to have to put in some good performances to keep this shirt in the famous green and white stripes of Bettis we had a player of the month worthy August it only took us about 15 minutes to score against our old club seval that was just the start of things to come we ended the game with two goals and I think this was the performance that finally went over the best fans by the end of August martial was La liga's top scorer and also player of the month despite playing three matches against sevil Atletico Madrid and Barcelona no one quite figured this out when it happened but in a Europa League group stage game against Crystal Palace something that would change Anthony martial's entire career happened French Winger Michael Alis pulled up holding his knee Alis had just made his debut for the national team earlier in the month and he would be the newest addition to the French National Sid's injury crisis with mé Alis demele and coo moani all out injured the French media was reporting that it was a clear two-horse race for the final spot in the national squad it could be sas's Armand laurente who was having his own breakout season in Italy or real bettis's Anthony martial who'd been on fire now for at least 8 months if martial was good at one thing it was blocking out the noise of the media we just kept playing great football goal after goal assist after assist and after 10 games we had clawed Bettis into a potential title race Not only was our form better than anything else we'd ever produced but our overall rating was increasing rapidly martial was now judged to be an 82 overall Striker surely the shps couldn't ignore us for too much longer we needed another lucky break and it looked like we might get one Not only was it Elis who was now injured but Musa diabi was also missing from the squad's announcements that meant there was room for both of us martial and lauriente had both been selected for late equips if he came on Off the Bench martial would win cap number 31 and of course martial would also want to grab a third international goal after 58 minutes we ran onto the pitch with a confidence to know that the first time since 2020 Anthony martial was fully back we tried our best to take the opportunity but it was our lack of pace that actually cost France the most with our fullback getting away and eventually setting up the winning goal for Brazil The General consensus was that we were nowhere near good enough to keep our spot for the second match so we were left on the bench for game number two after the glory of returning to the National stage it seemed like some of the hunger had actually left Anthony martial in the last half of the Season he went on 10 game go droughts twice but his early form saw him still score a respectable 14 goals in the league martial just couldn't compete with Victor bonifas who was 7 years younger we were about to find out if those 14 goals were respectable enough for did De shamps and on the 20th of May the team was announced for the upcoming USA World Cup there was no Anthony martial Armand laurente had made it but the lack of form had cost martial hard in the second half of the Season despite the setback of missing out martial knew that his story wasn't quite over martial might be a Parisian but I think his footballing heart lies in the south of France once again our agent tells us that we have a lot of options the same Bundesliga clubs are interested West Ham still want us but the really interesting offers are now coming from France Monaco are interested in a reunion for a second year in a row but now Leon are also interested in the same thing leyon were the club that scouted us when we were playing in Paris back in 2009 so it was very nostalgic when we finally signed the contract we' agreed to line up next to lacazette another French Striker who had rebuilt their career outside of England we had some high hopes for another good start to the season and it was safe to say that we got one Anthony martial scored the winning goal in five separate games before the end of September and while we weren't as prolific as last year we were killing games off and we were winning points with martial now being 31 this was his absolute Peak and that's exactly how it seemed like he was playing with our rating now all the way up to 85 only Killian mbappe was in this league or French and judged to be a better Striker we got recorded back to the French Squad mainly thanks to a huge amount of fan pressure from the massive Leon Ultras and even bagged two goals for France in October 2026 every everyone was hoping that martial could carry his form on into the second half of the Season unlike last year and in just a random League game martial was chasing the ball back into Midfield he was pressing he was doing slide tackles you could tell he knew he was the Talisman of the team that was until he didn't stand up you could tell that this was a serious hit and it didn't take long for the test results to come in an martial had actually torn both his ACL and his meniscus in his knee he'd be lucky if he'd ever run again and he was strongly advised to not try to make a footballing comeback we fought our way through 6 months of rehab eventually started training again but it was too clear that the injury had taken its tall on Anthony martial we were no longer the same player that we were in 2018 or even at the start of this season where we still had the potential to burst past people with some good acceleration now we've lost seven overall over the past 6 months we've lost 35 Pace and we're nowhere near good enough to get into the Leon let alone the France Squad in the back end of the season we did actually make a return to football and there were some offers for us in the summer but deep down we knew we didn't want to play in the French second division after making his debut in 2013 for Leon Anthony martial was retiring at the same Club in 2027 I hope you enjoyed this video it's always fun creating a story inside player career mode and if you want to see something kind of similar to this why don't you check out the deli allei video that's on screen right now where I tried to get into the World Cup squad in 2026 there's a lot of similarities between that video and this one but if you like this one I think you'll love that one thank you for watching really do appreciate it subscribe if you want to see more like this cheers and goodbye