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The Issue With Mbappé

Alejandro Lopez

Mundo Deportivo

After a year long transfer saga, Kylian Mbappé announced his free transfer to Real Madrid in June of 2024. In response, the football media broke out. Fans of the club were ecstatic while fans of other clubs trembled at the thought of a superstar like Kylian Mbappé joining one of the  best teams in all of Europe. 


Fast forward to October of 2024, Real Madrid have only 7 wins in their first 11 LaLiga matches, sit 2nd in the table (unusual for the Spanish kings), and are coming off of a humiliating defeat against their eternal rivals Barcelona, a confident side that thrashed them 4-0 at home! 


In light of all these results, fans can only wonder: where is it going all wrong? Is it manager Carlo Ancelotti’s inflexible tactics and questionable line-up choices? Is it the burnout of the players after too many games including national team games? There is no question that Real Madrid's   suffering is due to a myriad of factors, but one factor that sticks out to the fans the most is the lack of a clinical superstar in their new signing: Kylian Mbappé. 


The 2023/2024 season was one to remember for Los Blancos. They lost only one game in LaLiga out of 38, raking in 95 points. They won every El Clasico with formidable performances from their star players and even managed to win their 15th Champions League trophy after going unbeaten for the entire tournament. Pundits theorized that the side would suffer without their clinical striker Karim Benzema. But star signing Jude Bellingham stepped up and led the side through one of its most radical strategic changes in history. Before Jude, Los Blancos would often always play in a 4-3-3 formation with the striker dropping in deep as a False-9. This formation had brought the club a lot of glory, but without a natural striker, manager Ancelotti was forced to make a change to a 4-4-2 formation. It took a while for the team to find its flight, but when they did, they became unstoppable. Naturally, the addition of Mbappé to this side had fans of other clubs scared. What could go wrong? Well, as demonstrated by recent results, there were many things that could go wrong. 


For starters, Mbappé is playing as a striker, which, proven by performances in the France national team and in his old club, PSG, is not his most natural position. Thanks to his explosive speed, agility, and dribbling, Mbappé plays best as a winger. Now Ancelotti’s free flowing tactics allows Mbappé to often shift into a winger position, but it is exactly this where the problems arise. Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior already plays on the left wing. Overloading the wing in this manner leaves less freedom for both players to do what they do best and, additionally, it leaves a gap in the middle, forcing one of the midfielders to push upwards. And this creates all kinds of instability all over the pitch. It also could be argued that when Ancelotti has played a 4-3-3 formation with Mbappé on left wing, Rodrygo on right wing, and new brazilian signing Endrick as a striker, it has gone well. But Endrick unfortunately has been spending much of the season on the bench, despite proving time and time again that he can deliver goals for a Real Madrid side that desperately needs goals. Moreover, Mbappé has visibly been struggling for form, only netting 8 in his last 14 games, which is unusual for the French international. This was proven more evidently in his latest game against Barcelona where he was caught offside an embarrassing eight times. It is reasonable to think that Barcelona mastered an offside trap that caught the team by surprise and disabled their attack, but there were two instances in which Mbappé was onside and missed both times. 


Who Scored

Ultimately, there are a plethora of reasons that could explain the club’s recent performances. But many of them circle around their new star signing Mbappé. It has also put their former hero Jude Bellingham into a really uncomfortable situation since, with the extra gap in the midfield discussed earlier, he has to cover for as much as four different positions, adding his offensive and defensive duties. 


Hence, whatever is going on with Mbappé, the manager and the club must be scrambling for solutions as fans are getting desperate and their rivals, Barcelona, don’t seem to be stopping in their exponential growth.

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