McTominay will have to settle on ‘McFratm’ title honours

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This article was published 08/08/2025 (419 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There will be a first-time winner of the Ballon d’Or next month, and chances are it won’t be Scott McTominay.

In all fairness, he doesn’t deserve to win world football’s top individual prize. Paris-Saint German striker Ousmane Dembélé, to the predictable though justified delight of the France Football panel that determines the 30 finalists, is the obvious favourite, followed at some distance by club teammate Vitinha, Barcelona duo Raphinha and Lamine Yamal, and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.

And yet, given his heroics at Napoli last season, the 28-year-old warranted at least a mention in the discussion. On Thursday, when France Football revealed its ballot of nominees, he received it.

“Scott McTominay has been nominated for the Ballon d’Or.” If it sounds funny to hear, nevermind awkward to say, it’s likely because of a reputation that until last autumn had him typecast as an ordinary, workaday midfielder.

You’d see his name on a teamsheet and almost gloss over it. He was diligent, if unremarkable; good enough, but nothing special.

For the better part of five seasons, he was half of a bang-average midfield duo known comically as “McFred.” He and his partner, inevitably Fred, now at Fenerbahce, played 126 matches together for Manchester United, where they managed to lose a Champions League quarterfinal, an FA Cup quarterfinal, a Carabao Cup semifinal and the finals of both the FA Cup and Europa League.

“McFred,” like the players who lent their names to it, was synonymous not only with on-field mediocrity, but also with United’s overall decline. As it turned out, McTominay had only to leave the toxicity of Old Trafford to realize his untapped upside.

It was less a reinvention than a discovery. The player who went from run-of-the-mill at United to superstar at Napoli — seemingly overnight — had always been there.

When framed in that context, his ascendancy is as instructive as it is extraordinary.

Until he joined the Partenopei last August for 30 million euros, McTominay had been associated with Manchester United — from the academy to the first team squad — since the age of five. In July of 2013, two months after United’s most recent Premier League title and the retirement of legendary boss Sir Alex Ferguson, he signed his first professional contract.

Not unlike Marcus Rashford, he became inseparable from the diving fortunes of a club accustomed to winning. He needed to get out.

He also needed Antonio Conte.

A three-time Scudetto winner while manager of Juventus, Conte, who has also won titles at Chelsea and Inter Milan, has a history of pin-pointing promise in players, and then coaxing it out. Ex-Bianconeri stalwart Claudio Marchisio became a top-level midfielder under his guidance, and he seems to have reused the template with McTominay.

Barely half an hour into his Napoli debut, the Scotland international set up Kvicha Kvaratskhelia’s goal against Monza. Four days later he found the back of the net against Como.

He’d score 11 more before season’s end, his last one a spectacular scissor-kick on the final day that sealed the Scudetto. Between the beginning of March and end of May, as his club went unbeaten and leapfrogged Inter into first place, he was arguably the best midfielder in Europe, scoring six goals and adding two assists in one of the greatest runs of matches in Napoli’s history.

The performance saw him named Serie A MVP, putting him in the company of Francesco Totti, Michel Platini, Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Maradona.

It also made him a Campanian icon — an accomplishment even rarer than a Ballon d’Or nomination.

Few footballers can take to uniquely passionate Napoli, and fewer still can have the Neapolitans take to them. If they put in the work, often over a period of years, they might be cheered or even loved — already an exclusive group.

A precious few — and you can count them on one hand — are worshipped as demigods.

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On San Nicola a Nilo in the city’s centre, slightly above street level, is a former votive shrine now frescoed with McTominay’s face. Near his forehead is an identifier: “McFratm.” Playing on his surname and the local slang term for “brother,” it basically translates as “McBro.”

The separation from “McFred” couldn’t be more stark.

No, McTominay won’t win the Ballon d’Or. But in lieu of the famous trophy, “McFratm” will do just fine.

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