Friday, August 27, 2021
Mbappé before jumping to Real
Why do you leave a super team?
Needed by David
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Messi, Neymar, Mbappé: it doesn’t get much better in world football. But the French superstar Mbappé wants to blow up the super team before it was only on the pitch once. This time it’s not about money, but about the spotlight, ego – and the will to keep getting better.
The three strikers rush towards the opposing goal at the same time and pass the ball to each other at lightning speed. Defense, goalkeeper and spectators do not keep up at all. It all happens so quickly that in the end no one knows who is going to put the ball on goal. The keeper can almost always just look behind. The dreaded devil threesome is a creation of the Japanese comic series “Kickers” from the 1980s, but even in today’s soccer reality, such a trio is no longer impossible thanks to sheikh and oil millions.
Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé. Argentina’s number ten, Brazil’s number ten and France’s number ten. Half of Europe was already afraid of this offensive trio from Paris Saint-Germain, at least on paper there has probably been no better attack series since the MSN storm at FC Barcelona (Messi, Luis Suárez, Neymar). But the new super trio is likely to dissolve before it has even been able to spread fear and horror on the pitch as a devil threesome. Real Madrid are on the verge of buying Mbappé for € 180million. But why does the French want to leave such a super team?
After the French capital city club failed in the final of the Champions League in 2020 (at Bayern Munich) and in the semi-finals in 2021 (at Manchester City), world champion Mbappé demanded: Reinforcements are needed! So that the big coup, winning the handle pot, would finally succeed. Again and again national champions (even if they didn’t even succeed last season) and cup winners, that wasn’t enough for the ambitions of the 22-year-old and PSG. First Real Madrid leader Sergio Ramos was brought in – and then the most sought-after player in the world: Lionel Messi. The chances of a victory in the premier league of football have never been so good for PSG.
Mbappé wants to be the most important player on the team
But the latter transfer in particular will probably have caused a bit of horror at Mbappé. Neymar already left FC Barcelona because Messi stole two things from him: First, he stole too much of the limelight and then the Argentine claimed the most possession of the ball on the offensive. Mbappé is likely to be bothered by the fact that Messi is now the focus of attention, that PSG will become the “La Pulga” team. At AS Monaco, the French world champion was still too young to lead the team, at PSG he always had superstar Neymar by his side. Now Messi’s shadow could have become too big for him.
So it’s a question of the ego. It is quite possible that Mbappé would like to move to Real Madrid to become THE star on the offensive there. The most important player on the pitch. For the coming decade. With the slow end of the great careers of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the not too distant future, the Frenchman (together with Erling Haaland) is already on the way to becoming the face of the next generation of superstars. Where does that work better than at the prestige club from the Spanish capital? And that Madrid can win the Champions League – the title a player needs to really rise to the superstar heaven – the club has impressively demonstrated time and again.
Real, who he has been cheering on since childhood, could make Mbappé his team. And if he changes this late summer, it will be his team before Haaland may also join next year. It is well known that firstborns have privileges. In addition, the 22-year-old longs for the love of the fans. That too is an ego thing. The Ultras in Paris and the striker always had a difficult relationship, in some cases he was even booed. The fans never invented a song for his name, which existed in the French capital for most of the star players. The Madridista, on the other hand, are likely to receive the exceptional talent with open arms, especially because the last big transfer, Eden Hazard came from Chelsea in 2019, flopped a lot.
Not a question of money
It is definitely not because of the money that Mbappé wants to leave PSG quickly. He turned down a contract extension and an unbelievable annual salary of 50 million euros. Madrid won’t be able to offer him that amount. But the extremely ambitious striker noticed in his last, rather bad season and during the miserable European championship in summer that the French league is not exactly one of the best in the world. He wants to compete with the best defensive lines on a weekly basis in order to keep improving his game. In order to be able to shoot his team to the Champions League title themselves. In order to perform better again with the national team. That works better in the Primera División than in Ligue 1, where success or failure of each season is determined by a small handful of knockout games in the Champions League.
The world will probably never see the devil threesome from Paris. For this, Kylian Mbappé will finally find a team in which he is the superstar. Of course, prestige also plays a role, at Real he follows in the footsteps of Ronaldo, Raúl and Cristiano Ronaldo. And a devil’s threesome in the coming year together with Haaland and Karim Benzema doesn’t sound entirely wrong either.
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