Paris. Kylian Mbappe didn’t get what he wanted, so he took every PSG team hostage and put the club’s Champions League night on the line.
Of course, it’s not the French’s fault (only) that it ended this way. But the crumbling marriage between Mbappe and PSG should be a wake-up call for the entire industry.
The fireworks were the great pleasure of the audience is that Nasser Al-Khelaifi He grabbed the microphone in the indoor court of the Parc des Princes on May 21 this year and told that Kylian Mbappé, who was standing next to him, had extended his contract with the club. Live against Real Madrid, on the same day Paris Saint-Germain The league season ended in front of the home fans. Roars and heat rose in the arena. Suddenly, the Champions League exit against Real Madrid a few weeks ago disappeared from memory. Ici c Paris!
It can be guessed that Paris made some sacrifices in order to make their golden boy extend, but how they were brutally forced into the cattle trade is only clear today. Just hours before the return leg with Benfica – victory and PSG would qualify for the Round of 16 – information that Mbappe is tired of the club and wants to leave in the January window (!) spread in almost all French and sometimes Spanish media. One. This does not happen by itself. It is clear that the information was planted by Mbappe’s entourage and that the timing is no coincidence. Mbappe himself has hinted that he is not happy with the state of affairs either in interviews or on social media lately.
So the Paris Saint-Germain striker will be disappointed that the club, despite the promises it made when it extended last spring, has not managed to sign any new sharp striker this summer and is itself forced to play centrally in a three-man attack. On Mbappe’s part, he allegedly got the promise of one of the attacking lanes in a 4-4-2 system, as in the French national team (“there I feel more free,” as he himself recently explained).
Want to cry over broken promises
But when the transfer window closed in August, new coach Christoph Galtier felt the materials available to players were being put to better use in another way. So poor Kylian Mbappe had to dispense with his promised new world striker and fight with water carriers Lionel Messi and Neymar on each side.
Against Benfica at Parc des Princes tonight, only Neymar was with him, and the relationship with Copper is said to have been seriously strained because Mbappe may have also received a promise not to extend Neymar’s contract. Whatever it was, uninspiring – perhaps shaken for the above reasons – PSG had to wait up to five minutes before the break before they could go ahead against the Portuguese. It was Mbappe who dealt with it on penalties. The Parc des Princes, which was swept away by the last high winds of the British summer, complimented Kiki after all.
Paris weren’t exactly under pressure in the Champions League, but tonight’s win and the Round of 16 will be a reality. But such insignificance does not stand in the way of Kylian Mbappe when he wants to cry over his false promises.
Overflowing with great vanity
I don’t mean just screaming. Of course conventions have to be respected, and it’s absolutely true that Mbappe is at his best when he can use his pace in depth. Superstars having guarantees about both the game system and team reinforcements is of course not new in football. It’s possible to understand Mbappe’s disappointment on a personal level, but if you zoom out a bit, the picture gets a sharply problematic filter: When did individual footballers begin to control and dictate their club’s environment to the point that they no longer cared that they were jeopardizing the welfare of the entire team, So, is the Champions League promotion at stake? And why would Paris Saint-Germain double and Mbappe return with a certain playing system before they had a new coach? How do they think Christophe Galtier will instill power in a locker room already overflowing with vanity while forced to reflect on the promise of Mbappe that he inherited?
This situation highlights some of football’s credibility problems. In another world, it would have served as an alarm bell and lead to industry-wide introspection. In this world it’s not supposed to happen, but you can probably imagine that PSG at least will not sit in this position again. Or that they stop petting Kylian Mbappe and release him this winter if he now wants to take a Champions League bench elsewhere in Europe this spring.
I would like to believe that there are still some clubs that have enough self-esteem not to engage in this kind of flogging for their top stars. Institutions that operate on the principle that ultimately football is still a team sport and that the coach remains in charge in 2022.
Real Madrid. Bayern Munich. Juventus before the ongoing collapse (calling Haifa, Israel!).
The match tonight? Not much to say. When Marco Verratti received a penalty and Benfica’s Joao Mario equalized, the decision and CL’s promotion was postponed until at least the next round. Thank you “Kyky”!