This is starting to become a familiar little refrain, and one that is not going to change if Kylian Mbappé’s performances continue to get bogged down in the painfully ordinary, even indigestible. This Thursday morning in the Spanish press, after the defeat of Real Madrid on the Liverpool pitch (2-0), it’s all grimace soup and one man is attracting all the attention: the French striker, shown on the front page of newspapers via an image that marked the evening, with his head upside down, forced into an improvised breakdance figure after a shoulder push from Virgil Van Dijk in the 17th minute.
“Revolcón”, the somersault, aptly headlines As on the front page of today’s edition. “Mbappé missed a penalty and was not a solution,” we read below the title.
In the columns of the Madrid daily, the words are harsh: “This puncture will be associated with the figure of Kylian Mbappé, called to the rescue of a team where half of the players are offside, and who was clumsy, apathetic and, at times, disappeared, it is emphasized. By missing the penalty which could have given his team a lifeline, he was like his first steps in Madrid. He is zero in big matches and this time, he has no alibi: he had the entire left side (Editor’s note: in the absence of the injured Vinicius), and was at the top of the hierarchy. »
Also with the image of Mbappé upside down, the Catalan daily Mundo Deportivo headlines “Trompazo Mbappé”, which could be translated as “the blow”, or “the crash”. “The Frenchman was the great disappointment of an evening where everyone expected him and where he failed miserably,” we read in the columns of the rather pro-Barcelona media.
“He is not there, he does nothing and he misses everything,” writes Mundo Deportivo. It is true that his physique and his head are enough for him, because he does not seem to weaken in his determination to shine, but it is his legs, those with which he has been superior to the rest in recent times, which do not respond to him, nor his chemistry with his teammates, which he doesn’t completely understand. »
Marca, for its part, sets out the “Cruel reality” which overtook Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappé this Wednesday evening. Editorialist Carlos Carpio believes that the Frenchman is going through “a crisis of confidence which is eating away at him”. “The irrefutable fact is that Kylian Mbappé is not even a shadow of the player he has been in recent years. That things don’t work out for him and that the crisis of confidence he suffers eats away at him until he becomes an unrecognizable footballer. »
Guti, former legend of the Merengue club, summarized the Frenchman’s recurring difficulties: “he is not up to the task but that is normal, the Real Madrid jersey weighs heavy. »
