“From the penalty spot, sometimes you score, sometimes you don’t. » As often since the start of the season, Carlo Ancelotti took out the oars this Wednesday evening to try to defend his number 9 Kylian Mbappé. Inevitably questioned about the performance of his striker, still silent during the defeat against Atletico Bilbao (2-1) but above all the author of a missed penalty for the second time in a row after Liverpool last week (2-0) , the Italian technician repeated again and again his confidence in his attacker.
“From the penalty spot, sometimes you score, sometimes you don’t. These are things that happen. I’m not going to judge his performance on a penalty,” he argued. Except the rest isn’t brilliant either. If he was involved in the only Madrid goal when his long-range shot was repelled by the Basque goalkeeper and ended up at the feet of Jude Bellingham alone facing the empty goal, the French striker did not weigh enough, still in the absence by Vinicius.
And inevitably, his new penalty failure will get people talking again. A week after his first miss against Liverpool, which had generated big questions about his mental state, Carlo Ancelotti explained “not having spoken yet” to his player. “He is sad about the penalty, yes… but it can happen,” he simply explained. Ancelotti even maintains all his confidence in the exercise. “There are no changes to penalties. We have three shooters: Bellingham, Vinicius and Mbappé,” he insisted.
