From our special correspondent in Düsseldorf,
Two games, a broken nose, a goal on a penalty and five masks tested. That’s Kylian Mbappé’s statistics since the start of the Euro. But beyond the numbers and the inefficiency of the future Real Madrid scorer, it’s the general and visual impression that screams “problemos” with Mbappé since his arrival in Germany. Before putting our heads down and analyzing in detail what’s wrong with the 2018 world champion’s races, we must first mention his positioning, which is also not without raising questions.
As such, the match against Poland last Friday in Dortmund is a perfect summary of the limits of the “everything for Kyky” system put in place by Didier Deschamps this summer. By positioning his ultimately played very little in the center-forward position. Just take a look at its heatmap to be convinced.
To understand the why and how, “we must take into account what Deschamps has been repeating since the start of the Euro, namely that Mbappé is free,” says Yacine Hamened, educator and columnist for Paris United and the Club des 5. “It’s up to the team to constantly adapt. If he wants to go left, right, if he wants to drop back, someone must always compensate. That explains the fact that we often found him on the side of Barcola and very rarely at the forefront of the 4-3-3, where he was supposed to be, at least on paper.”
Two symptomatic actions
And not just a little. Because how can we give ourselves every chance of scoring goals if, upon receiving crosses from Théo Hernandez, Barcola or Dembélé, it is Casper the friendly ghost who is in the opposing area? Let’s take two examples where Mbappé was conspicuous by his absence in the opposing sixteen meters against Poland.
» At a standstill without the possibility of having the ball, Mbappé abandons the penalty area even though he knows the overflow quality of Barcola, his teammate at PSG last season.
> As a result, by the time Mbappé starts his run, Barcola is already in a position to cross.
> This action is even more glaring, bordering on tearing one’s hair out. Still with Barcola, who recovers a very low ball and unleashes a crazy acceleration while the Polish team did not have time to retreat. In front of Mbappé, a boulevard.
> Yet what is the French striker doing? He decides not to follow and, worse, he has the nerve to claim the ball behind in a situation that requires going deep, not to mention that the passing line is absolutely closed and Barcola cannot give it to him.
> As a result, seeing that he was abandoned in the open countryside, the Parisian winger had no other choice but to strike.
“Mbappé naturally flees the axis to return regularly to the left, because that is where he feels the strongest and most comfortable, having the game in front of him and his shoulders already oriented towards the goal, on his foot right. He did that often this season already, especially during the double confrontation against Dortmund,” analyzes Alex Teklak, former Belgian professional footballer now a media consultant.
Less juice, fewer sprints
But if that was all there was to it, again. The second action mentioned above perhaps reflects something other than a simple reluctance for this role of surface fox. We then come to the question of the physical capacities of the captain of the France team, he who is coming out of a second part of the season at an upset pace for reasons that we know. “Mentally, I am ready to do anything to try to win this Euro. For the moment, I have the head and tomorrow we will see if I have the legs,” he declared before the first match against Austria.
It is clear after two matches that the response is not necessarily what was hoped for. Even if, from a numerical point of view, this is not noticeable. Mbappé has run around eight kilometers per match since the start of the Euro, a little less than his usual club average in recent seasons (around 8.5).
“That’s why stats have their limits. He runs roughly the same distances as before but I am sure that there are many, many fewer high-intensity races, judges Yacine Hamened. Does he not want to do them or does he not have the legs to do them? We saw a lot of situations this season with PSG where they didn’t make deep runs, even when the counterattack was developing. I don’t want to believe that it’s a question of desire but a story of legs and chest. »
« “It’s a bit of an extension of his season with Paris,” Teklak continues. “I think he dragged that around all season and it was very apparent, especially during the double confrontation against Dortmund in the semi-final of the Champions League. He seemed less convinced by everything he was doing.” »
“I think he is ‘paying’ for his behavior last season,” continues the author of the Offside in French football: The rant of an educator, at Talent Sport. Before, on the eight kilometers he ran, he did 25, 30, 35 sprints. Today with PSG it must be 15 or 20. I often compare that to people who run 10 kilometers. If you train for two months to run it in sixty minutes, there is very little chance that on the big day you will run it in thirty-eight minutes. » “It is not in ten days of preparation that you recover all your physical capacities, confirms Teklak. I think he needs a lot more time to recover between each high intensity run than before. »
When Mbappé no longer wants to play Mbappé
There remains one last point, this one more general. Beyond an overall understandable physical deficit, shouldn’t we see in this evolution of Mbappé’s game the desire to change register and to evolve, certainly much earlier in his career, in the manner of a Cristiano Ronaldo on these last years at Real and Juve?
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“I’ve been thinking for several months, if not several seasons, that he no longer wants to be reduced to a fast player who makes the difference with his speed,” Hamened agrees. “So he comes to look for balls lower down to combine, to organize the game. He wants to prove that he’s not just a vulgar ‘straight forward’, even if I’ve never reduced him to that.”
If the idea can be understood, a player needing to renew himself throughout his career so as not to become too readable for his opponents, be careful on the other hand not to change completely, at the risk of forgetting road which was its primary strength. “I don’t know if it comes from his entourage or if it’s his personal reflection, but I think he is wrong in this evolution which is too marked in my opinion,” concludes Hamened. We are waiting for a lethal depth hold against Belgium to make us lie.
