What do you get when a megastar like Kylian Mbappe joins Real Madrid? Goals and trophies? Most likely. Media attention? Guilty. Pressure and expectation? Absolutely.
Mbappe has eight goals and two assists in 14 appearances for Real.
That’s a solid start for a player adapting to a new country – but this is a club that refused to attend the Ballon d’Or ceremony when it became obvious one of their players wasn’t going to win.
They see themselves as football’s apex predator, and they have the trophies to back it up. They want more than solid.
So after Real’s catastrophic 4-0 home defeat to Barcelona, we thought we’d look at how Mbappe has been doing.
Problem one: Mbappe isn’t taking chances
Mbappe has taken the most shots of any player in Europe’s major leagues this season, but his finishing has been decidedly mediocre. Take away the three penalties he’s scored in La Liga and it gets even worse.
(Ranks for players in top 5 European Leagues)
Without those penalties, Mbappe’s shot conversion rate lags way behind his peers – especially Lewandowski and Bradley Barcola, currently making a great fist of replacing Mbappe at PSG.
In Mbappe’s defence he is third-highest scorer in Spain, albeit eight goals behind Lewandowski. He’s unfortunate that Barcelona have a player enjoying such an incredible late-career run – but welcome to the Bernabeu. They don’t like being outdone by Barca.
Problem two: Keeping onside
How do you deal with Mbappe’s pace? One way is to drop deep and give him nothing to run into. The other way – the riskier way – is to push up and let the assistant referee help. That’s what Barcelona did.
Mbappe was caught offside eight times in El Clasico – the most times a player has been flagged in a major European league game since Chievo’s Sergio Pellissier in December 2013.
Part of that is down to Barcelona’s remarkable offside trap – 77 offsides in La Liga this season, 32 times more than any other team in Europe. But even if you removed El Clasico from the record (as Real would no doubt like to), Mbappe would still be La Liga’s second most-flagged player.
Only two other players have been offside as often in the whole of this season as Mbappe was on Saturday.
This won’t be Mbappe’s biggest issue – few teams will be as brave as Barcelona – but there are early signs that it will have an impact. Last season, Real scored nearly a quarter of their league goals from counter attacks and through balls – situations where you’d expect Mbappe to thrive – but so far this term they’ve scored only one of each.
It’s likely that teams are defending much deeper against Real now they’ve got Mbappe. But if that’s the case, it’s an area where player and team will need to adapt.
Problem three: Real’s other superstars
This isn’t the first time Mbappe has had to learn to play with other superstars – remember the Messi and Neymar days at PSG? The difference is that back then, Mbappe was the young up-and-comer.
Now he’s an established global icon, a World Cup winner, one of the few players on Earth who can justifiably walk into Real Madrid’s dressing room and expect that his new team-mates should adapt to him.
So far, that’s happening. Vinicius Junior was Real’s top scorer last season with 24 goals in 39 appearances, but in the Mbappe era he’s playing as more of a creator. Goals, shots, and touches in the opposition box are down (albeit he has five league goals, only one fewer than Mbappe); assists and chance creation are up.
Jude Bellingham’s role has changed too. Last season he scored 19 league goals; this time around he’s yet to score in the league. Not so surprising when you consider he’s far less active in the final third this season.
Last season, Vinicius Junior, Bellingham, and Rodrygo took a combined 9.4 shots per 90 in La Liga. This season that’s down to 6.2. Mbappe has made Real more predictable.
Problem four: Maybe we’re expecting too much?
As we mentioned at the top, Mbappe hasn’t made a terrible start.
He has six goals in 10 league appearances – Ronaldo scored seven in his first 10 league appearances for Real.
Saturday wasn’t the first time in recent years that El Clasico has thrown up a heavy home defeat for either team. And you can hardly say that a man who scored two penalties in a World Cup final – three if you include the shoot-out – can’t deal with pressure.
But that’s life at Real Madrid.
