Far it be from me to get involved in this debate (I'm not aware of the prior back and forth) however I do think @Jogger Bonitoe is on the right path in questioning that assumption which is default canon in these kinds of conversations
Kylian Mbappé | Real Madrid watch
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Far it be from me to get involved in this debate (I'm not aware of the prior back and forth) however I do think @Jogger Bonitoe is on the right path in questioning that assumption which is default canon in these kinds of conversations
You haven't missed anything, there was a back and forth in the Messi v Pele thread (which of course turned into a Messi v Ronaldo thread), where I was viciously attacked by multiple Messi fans and called a 'Ronaldo cult member'
by that poster for daring to suggest that Messi and Ronaldo have a rivalry and not giving sufficient deification to Messi's playmaking.
It's hilarious because I think Messi is better than Ronaldo, but this is the level the discourse has reached.
Anyway, back to Mbappe. His ego appears to be a big problem, but Madrid have multiple issues.
He posted multiple bibles full of self contradictory nonsense and wouldn’t let it go despite being called out by numerous people. That’s basically it, absolutely ruined a thread and will no doubt do likewise in this one.
By 'nonsense', he means stuff that suggests that Messi perhaps cannot turn water into wine.
Yes he can
Nope. He turns water into mate, not wine. Can't do wine
Just short of being the messiah
The matessiah
I don’t think that’s wholly accurate. Mbappe is a dream signing when you’re trying to get to the top level, if you’re already there, he has the potential to be a liability in numerous ways; neither PSG or Bayern would exchange what they have to accommodate him. For the likes of us, lacking world class players, he’d be a player we’d bend over backwards to accommodate and only take in the positives, likely glad he deigned us even worth joining, but if you take us back to ‘06-‘08, we’d not touch him because he has no interest in catering to teammates and he’d be in the way of others far too often to be worth it, plus zero defensive contribution to compound that.
His landscape as far as clubs who could afford him is extremely narrow and it’s the level below the top 4 clubs in Europe.
The real question for me is whether he's good enough to build around, 'cause you kind of have to build the attack around him because he has no adaptability. He's like Messi and (late) Cristiano in this regard
The comparison to a declining Cristiano I get but how is he like Messi in any way, shape or form ?
Messi had little to no adaptability either. You had to cater to him tactically and in squad composition. His attacking teammates had to have the ability to adapt their game to his(which is an underrated quality of Neymar btw)
I think he is, but it’s harder to do that when you’re adding him to a team instead of starting with him, as if in a simulation or draft. You’d need another oil team to pop up to do it “properly”; normal clubs can’t just cull a unit and rebuild it with 100’s of millions of euro talent in one go.
Mbappe has become such a bizarre final product; gone from selfless to selfish and from adaptable to unbending. The kid at Monaco was praised for his decision making and ability to read and exploit the game more than anything else, and now? He couldn’t care less about any of that. It’s like he’s going backwards in that regard.
That’s just wrong. Your Madrid bias is showing again.
No i'm not. Messi devoured every single ball dominant teammate he had in his career with the exceptions of Neymar - who largely adapted by playing primarily off the ball - and Di Maria - in the context of international football, where Di Maria was argentina's version of Iniesta basically, more of a midfielder than an attacker
ask Luis Enrique about trying to fit Neymar next to Messi. First it nearly got him sacked, and by the end he was playing Ney as an outright fecking wingback
I use the term playmaking because it's short and easy. You can call that chance creation, controlling the match, dribbling or whatever. For me it is about contribution.
See, the issue I have with your approach is that the differentiation between scoring and other plays doesn't make sense. A player goal is by definition the last touch before the ball passes the goal line. It says nothing about the importance of said touch in the sequence of play. If the CM plays a brillant through ball, the winger squares it over a short distance and the striker converts the chance, the most important part of that sequence won't get any credit at all. Double so if the striker misses. If you wanted to quantify a player's contribution to attacks, you'd have to assign a value to every play he does and sum that up. And even then you're only measuring contributions to the attack. But 99.9% of football games don't consist of scoring. A midfielder who consistently releases preassure by being pressing resistant or breaking the line can be incredibly important for your success because he allows you to defend with the ball. That's even more important in the modern age where coaches like Klopp say that "pressing is the best playmaker in the world" because most chances are created after high turnovers.
The reason why these "top 10 of all time" lists feature so many 10s is that this position is the one you want to have your best player in. Not too close to your own goal so that he can create chances but also not too close to the opponent's goal so that he's on the ball often enough to maximize his effect.
It’s a strange line you’re drawing here. Of course most of Barcelona’s play went through Messi at that point and for good reason. And be it RW or false 9 he had much more variety to his game than Mbappe.
Comparatively Cristiano needed more accommodating in similar ways to what Mbappe currently requires. But Mbappe looks very limited and predictable in comparison even to the Juventus version of Cristiano.
Of course, with good reason. That also means Barcelona couldn't just put someone like Ronaldinho next to him. They needed runners, forwards who could be effective with 20-30 touches per game. Preferably active and willing to spend energy on defence as well, and good at occupying the spaces where Messi wasn't
Which is irrelevant to what I'm saying
Ok I see. Yeah it’s basically what I was saying months ago about Mbappe monopolizing certain spaces on the pitch which hinders his teammates’ play and production.
Mbappe has his flaws, but PSG should have made the final with Mbappe in his final season there too. They absolutely dominated Dortmund in that 2nd leg and were extremely unlucky.
While Madrid have faltered since his arrival, they have lacked a controller since Kroos' retirement and injuries have piled up for some of their best defenders.
All their best attackers also function better on the left side. They lack a controller in midfield and Bellingham is better suited in advanced positions compared to deeper positions too. Mbappe does create balancing issues and his adaptability from his younger days seems to have vanquished, but I still think you can make a balanced side around him too.
Now if you want to make the argument that a well balanced side doesn't exist with Mbappe, it has merit too. It's certainly possible since he wants positional freedom on the field, doesn't work hard off the ball, and will vacate the penalty box to ask for the ball in needless areas.
But I am still curious to see how they(and Mbappe look) look if they fixed some of their squad issues in general. Again, I think PSG should have made the CL final in 2024 with Mbappe and I don't think Mbappe's become overly less adaptable in 2 years.
While Madrid have faltered since his arrival, they have lacked a controller since Kroos' retirement and injuries have piled up for some of their best defenders.
All their best attackers also function better on the left side. They lack a controller in midfield and Bellingham is better suited in advanced positions compared to deeper positions too. Mbappe does create balancing issues and his adaptability from his younger days seems to have vanquished, but I still think you can make a balanced side around him too.
Now if you want to make the argument that a well balanced side doesn't exist with Mbappe, it has merit too. It's certainly possible since he wants positional freedom on the field, doesn't work hard off the ball, and will vacate the penalty box to ask for the ball in needless areas.
But I am still curious to see how they(and Mbappe look) look if they fixed some of their squad issues in general. Again, I think PSG should have made the CL final in 2024 with Mbappe and I don't think Mbappe's become overly less adaptable in 2 years.
I think a balanced side is impossible with Vinicius, Mbappe and Bellingham on the field. With Mbappe alone, it would probably be doable although his tactical freedom and lack of defensive work rate will cause his coach many headaches. Much would be solved if you simply play him off the left instead of Vinicius with a hard working striker (though the same can be said vice versa to be fair) but not everything. He'll still won't get behind the ball consistently because he's speculating on a turnover by the opponent so that he's in a better position to get inbehind.
The point about Kroos is true. However, if you look back at Messi, Neymar and even Cristiano, they used to offer lots in terms of ball progression, pressing resistency and playmaking in general themselves to help their team mates under pressure as well. That compensated for a lot of the sacrifices being made to fit them in. Mbappe is barely a factor in these aspects and IMO that's simply not enough to justify the freedom he demands.
And to be honest, I'm a bit shocked that he still hasn't understood this. An Mbappe who sacrifices a bit of his end product for the collective would be a frightening player.
Neymar is very poorly rated. People underline way too much his technical ability when analyzing him; he wasn't that special technically compared to some other playmakers from the wings of his time (Hazard or Mahrez, for instance); his touch, close control and through balls were a bit inconsistent, in reality. What really made him special (again, in comparison to other highly skilled players) was much more related to movement, mapping, anticipation and assertiveness.
What sacrifice did Neymar require, besides one slot in your XI?
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Less than Mbappe for sure. But while he wasn't as lazy against the ball as Mbappe, he still wasn't the hardestworking or tactically disciplined attacker either. I rate Neymar very, very highly.
Nothing you've said here is controversial, but the issue I have is the assigning of 'importance' to the specific acts in the chain. There was a perfect illustration of one of your examples here in the game yesterday, when Kvara squared the ball to Dembele for the goal. Why is what Kvara did more important' in the chain of events than what Dembele did? You need both to get the necessary result. If Dembele doesn't convert the chance, then PSG are not on the cusp of being the first team to defend the Champions League for 8 years. But then if Kvara doesn't create the chance, Dembele cannot score. It doesn't make sense to call the Kvara bit more important.
To bring this back to Mbappe, I'm not a huge Mbappe fan, I think he is a great player, but he is reliant to a large degree on his exceptional speed (which is an incredible weapon in football, it must be said) and he hasn't quite become what he promised to be as a teen. But you seem to be framing him as a player who doesn't contribute in an attacking sense except for scoring goals. This is manifestly false, for anyone who has watched him play at any point during his career. He is a creative player, he can dribble (he has the third most completed dribbles in La Liga this season), he can pass, he can create goals. This was more evident before Madrid when he wasn't playing so much as a 9, but it remains a fact.
Mbappe's problem is rather his unwillingness to defend, which I think is an issue of ego, and potentially hurts his club teams (which in recent years have contained other forward players who also don't want to defend, though none so reluctant as he).
I have said on here however that I think there is a very good chance that he will win the Ballon D'Or this year if France win the World Cup (which is a strong possibility). France have the luxury of constructing the team to kind of cover Mbappe's flaws, and international football is different in its requirements anyway.
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Only in the lazy pressing aspect (and both gain that right, they weren't that way their whole carreer and even when old, applied an extra gear to mark and press in certain ocassions), adaptabilty to diff roles was essential in both those fellas carreer.
So Far Killian has been an extraordinary pacey forward with enough talent to disrupt any match and provide numbers in the curse of an entire season and more than probably will remain that way.
Since also he is not exactly a pure striker, nor a pure winger, his playing style comes with some nuances to get the best of him. In any case Madrid not being that succesful while renovating his midfield to replace Kross and Modric has also a lot to do to what a player like Killian needs to not feel threatened in the spaces he wants to ocuppy and to actually provide him more volume of game in the best possible way.
I’ve tried after what happened with his almost-transfer saga, but I still can’t really connect with him. I don’t dislike him, but I also don’t feel the passion I should feel for the superstar of my team.
I get the feeling we are not going to win anything with him around. He gives me bad vibes.
Like many of you said, we probably should have signed Haaland or another top striker and just kept things the way they were.
I can’t see Florentino selling stars so maybe Mourinho’s biggest task (and the next manager’s too) will be making it all fit together.
I get the feeling we are not going to win anything with him around. He gives me bad vibes.
Like many of you said, we probably should have signed Haaland or another top striker and just kept things the way they were.
I can’t see Florentino selling stars so maybe Mourinho’s biggest task (and the next manager’s too) will be making it all fit together.
I wasn't being accurate in the sense of even who can afford him, I was just pointing that he is such a great player that would obviously tempt anyone and that with some adjustments you can get the best of him, without EVER expecting him to be some sort of all rounded Maradona alike menace.
He is in some ways the type of player R9 was, not easy to encapsulate in a role with his playing style, not as easy as a let put Romario there to finish everything and also bring other players in the mix. He is in the force of nature alike forward that because of that will be a tad hard to manage, still for me a more than tempting purchase even if it's not the best scenario.
There is also another thing, he was really close to win the CL with PSG, extremely close and he didn't because of the usual tight margins regarding that sort of KO competitions. He lacked the sort of timing/luck he had (a tad too much) so far in WCs. And I'm mentioning this, because he would be seen under another light today if he already had a CL it in his bag and that last WC, more than probaly in some OVER THE TOP praise, minimizing the traits he certainly doesn't have. Not far ago after the WC Final social media flood the world with Pele comparisons, maybe it was a good thing in terms of a pure strict football sense apreciation of his talent that sometimes huge achivements tend to create an overblown assessment of a certain player atributes.
In the example you brought up it is not more important but there are other scenarios in which it is. And that's the issue with using goal records as a performance incidator - it's fundamentally incomplete. Of course there's generally a correlation of quality performance and goal returns but it is a loose one. Yet, it is nowadays often used as a be all, end all metric to prove that X is better than Y. And my initial point was that this was facilitated by the Messi vs Ronaldo debate which started because of their otherworldy performances but detoriated more and more into spreadsheet battles.
And while Mbappe is definitely more than just a pure goal scorer, I think the main reason he was rated that highly was his insane goal record at a young age. Because in general, his allrpund game was good but nowhere near previous prodigies such as Messi, Neymar or now Yamal.
So IMO the dilemma with him is that he's treated (and demands to be treated) like a generational player tactically - as in, no defensive work rate, no positional discipline in and out of possession - but lacks both the natural ability and natural football IQ to justify it. As said, if he worked on that, he could be an insane player. Imagine him after a Dembele-like transformation.
As you've articulated it here, I think these are fair points, TBH. Technically, he's not as good a player as Messi, Neymar or Yamal. There's no debate there.
However, his physical gifts are so extreme, that if he did what Dembele is doing now, he really could be that 'Michael Jordan' two-way player type that Enrique referenced. His speed would be such an asset in closing down opponents.
But he is the way that he is now, and I don't think he's changing. As I said, this is probably less of a problem with France than it is with the top club sides that he may play for.
This doesn’t work, though because Ronaldo was exceptional on his own and when interplaying with others - his chemistry was exceptional and he made teams better individually and collectively he was also not bothered whether he went up top or behind and started deeper. He wasn’t similar to Mbappe in any way, for me, and outside of outright speed, the comparison has never worked in my eyes.
Mbappe is a headache for his own teams offensively and defensively, which is some feat. Only Deschamps seems to have cracked the modern version’s code, everyone else is hamstrung by him and then his ego on top. He really is quite the anomaly.
He was better, not a single doubt about it, sthg that I think is so clear that there is no need to even bring it, but we can't say it always worked given how many times he was also part of why the team he was involved didn't work as a team as they should.
He was a better passer, a better all rounder, yet not exactly a fella (that like Mbappe also can't) could switch to a midfielder role (this is not the same as dropping back and start from deep) and be as good as he was as wild card powerfull forward, that in many ways it's the sort of forward Mbappe is (less talented and worse too sellfish many times for his own good version).
Some sort of wild card forward, extremely pacey, less talented but similar in being in that sort of niche. PD: Anyway Fort I do agree that R9s passing, one two's and even final ball is undervalued.
In any case the main thing here is that like Mbappe, he wasn't exactly a finisher with all around game and mostly reading like Romario, he was not a pure winger, he wasn't a pure striker. He was a menace from anywhere, yet he wasn't always (with a great quote of nostalgia) perfectly involved, even when surrounded by quite majestic players around and also needed defensive adjustments to compensate his approach.
Both are very much in the moment players in their peak, that use their extra athletism and talent to overcome and roll on rivals. On favor of R9, are not only that better passing, less sellfish and more talent overall, but also that he adapted way fast to be a more striker alike when his physique/fitness was letting his down, yet in his peak, both have similarities in being that type of wild card forward.
There are for instance nuances in Gullit (another powerful pacey "forward") or Romario more upfront stationary forward that made them diff. and more keen to get around any team or squeme to these two more speedy pacey counterparts when it came to actually involve others, or be more tactical, more intelligent all around players. At teh end of course I agrre that overall the french is extraordinary, the Brazilian just a genius, Phenom alike fella, but there are similarities.
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Madrid fans have been spoilt by so many years of Benzema. Top, top quality but ready and willing to do the hard work and act as a foil for others whenever necessary.
Madrid don’t have a Benzema anymore and it is hurting them. It’s a real pity because Bellingham was so much better as a box crasher and was scoring so many goals. Vini Jr was so much better when he had space and and elevated role in the team.
They were moving towards having just the right balance and greed completely fecked them. Enjoy the fallout I guess.
Madrid don’t have a Benzema anymore and it is hurting them. It’s a real pity because Bellingham was so much better as a box crasher and was scoring so many goals. Vini Jr was so much better when he had space and and elevated role in the team.
They were moving towards having just the right balance and greed completely fecked them. Enjoy the fallout I guess.
I was sceptical of Mbappe signing when it happened, as he would likely just get into the way of Vinicius and Bellingham, which is what happened.
Mbappe doesn't have the link-up play to do the job Benzema did anyway, Kane was the most ideal replacement for Benzema available at the time, but the club didn't even try for him.
Yet at the same time not founding a solution in the midfield department replacing legendary fellas there would still hurt Real's overall capabilities more than any Killian, Jude or whomever they can buy.
Real needs to solve this aspect way before anything. In fact even when they had those legendary ones, they faced times were other teams controlled an excessive ammount of time the ball, but there was always some instance where the intelligence and reading of a Modric or Kross could save the day with an extraordinary action, gain a vital lapse of time to cold stuff around, put a bit of pause in an otherwise extremely chaotic and frantic side.
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Thats a glaring problem that also needs to be adressed in the summer, there isn't really any midfielder in the squad that can control tempo or get us out of a tight spot.
Its probably easier to deal with than the other situation too, not because finding the right midfielder will be easy, but because i doubt we are getting rid of either Vinicius or Mbappe in the summer(though i sure hope so).
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I’m not talking about better because that’s a non-contest. I’m talking about similarities, and outside of speed, for me, there are so few they don’t warrant being brought up in the same conversation. Mbappe is becoming infamous for incompatibility with teammates and needing to have the entire team built around him from scratch. That’s an indictment on what he has metamorphosed into from his selfless and clever beginnings and likely something that can’t be reversed now due to his enormous ego.
I used to be a huge fan of Mbappe, the younger - the “matured” version is someone I can acknowledge for his lethality, but can also see the headache in accommodating. People talk about needing an elite midfield for him, but skip over the bit where the rest of the attack better be conciliatory and get out of his way, plus his arrival disrupted a winning team and knocked two former key players noses out of joint. It’s not a good sign and it is rightfully pointed out, just as it was literally before he even kicked a ball for Madrid.
With Bellingham and Vini on fire, what they needed was Haaland. He could have been perfect there.
For me the perfect striker for them would have been Kane but they turned their noses up at him due to his age. Haaland would have been a harder fit as he doesn't help playmake whereas Kane is very happy to drop deep and already had a partnership with Son that gives you an idea of how him and Jude would have played. Also being cheaper would have been a bonus but Perez wanted the next Glatico and Mbappe is the perfect embondiment of it.
Would Mbappe ever just sit and have an epiphany and go “hey, maybe I should just work a little harder, maybe the problem is partly me?”. It’s interesting because my layman/basic brain and thoughts tell me surely “working hard” is the easiest deficiency to “fix” for a professional athlete? Or what am I missing, besides selfishness and ego etc?
That wouldn't solve that him and Vini don't fit in the same team, and their midfield isn't balanced.
Mbappe is incredible, an absolute superstar, and yes needs to work harder more consistently to be even better. But Madrid's issues are they built up a team of superstars who don't suit each other. Many teams can have an Mbappe in their system and compete for everything. But he just doesn't work with Vini. They want to do the same things so you won't get the best of either