“He must get it into his head that…”: Karim Benzema lets loose on the Mbappé case

“The problem is that Mbappé is not a No. 9,” said former Real Madrid and France team scorer Karim Benzema on Spanish television, pointing out a lack of compatibility with the Brazilian Vinicius Junior.

“The problem, in my opinion, is that he is not a center forward. Even in the national team, every time he plays as No. 9 he doesn’t feel good, because it’s not his position. But on the left, he has a guy who is at the same level as him, Vinicius. So there is a problem,” Benzema reacted in an interview broadcast Monday evening on the show El Chiringuito.

“Vinicius, we cannot put him in No. 9 or on the right, because by playing on the left he makes the difference in every match. Mbappé is not a real No. 9. People ask a lot of him, he has a lot of pressure. It’s not Paris Saint-Germain,” added the 2022 Ballon d’Or who, at 36, now plays for Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.

“Should I give him some advice? He doesn’t give up, because I don’t think he’s going to push Vinicius to move. He’s the best player in the world right now. Mbappé must get it in his head that today he is a No. 9, and forget the left side a little. Then he must find a way to swap with Vinicius. He is very good on the left, but now he must become very good in another position,” said the French striker.

The former No. 9 Merengue, who spent 14 seasons at Real, recalls that in Madrid “if you go two or three games without scoring a goal, you get killed. You can win the Ballon d’Or, whatever you want, three games later you don’t score and it starts again.

“Mbappé must therefore learn to live with this pressure. He needs to put positive pressure on himself. Every game is a new game, and he has to score goals. Because that’s what we brought you in for: to score goals. He has the level and the talent to succeed,” he concluded.