Mbappé’s behavior scandalizes France

Kylian Mbappé is out of the Blues’ next two matches, but he played with Real Madrid on Saturday. A situation that questions and annoys fans.

Some French people woke up with a hangover on Sunday morning, a bitter aftertaste in their mouths. This feeling is not only due to the excesses of the night, but also to a feeling of abandonment. Of betrayal, even. From one of the nation’s heroes: Kylian Mbappé.

The superstar is out of France’s next two matches in the Nations League, Thursday against Israel in Budapest and Monday in Belgium. The reason? An injury to the left thigh – suffered on September 24 – from which the Habs have not yet fully recovered. Just before giving his list last Thursday, coach Didier Deschamps spoke with Mbappé, just to take stock of the player’s health and decide, thus, whether to select him or not.

According to The teamthe Real Madrid striker – who had just made his return by playing 35 minutes in the Champions League against Lille on Wednesday – indicated that he did not feel fit enough to honor his selection and that he needed to rest. A request heard by the French coach, who affirmed that he was “not there to take risks”.

This same Didier Deschamps must have rubbed his eyes on Friday evening when he saw that Kylian Mbappé was retained in the Real Madrid squad for Saturday’s La Liga match against Villarreal. And he may have even peeled his eyelids off on Saturday when his star striker, although (self) announced to be in bad shape, played 70 minutes as a starter during the victory of the Madrilenians (2-0).

How can such inconsistency be explained? “We can see in this anomaly yet another symptom of the precedence given by players to their club rather than their selection“, advance The World.

For his part, The team recalls that Real Madrid “continues to regularly push some of its players to be called in for international windows, and the coaches rarely dare to oppose him”. And the very busy schedule of Meringues is likely to reinforce this trend. The Madrid club had, for example, banned its players – including Mbappé – from playing in the Olympic Games this summer.

Bad timing and disenchantment

The sports daily also highlights:

In the case of Kylian Mbappé, the timing is a problem: if he wanted to give the impression to Didier Deschamps and the Blues fans that they needed to take a breather, he should not have played this match on Saturday against Villarreal. With more subtle (but hypocritical) communication, we could have imagined Mbappé still arriving in the French team this week and admitting, only from that moment, that he still felt discomfort in his thigh and that he had, therefore , need rest.

And then, the Nations League, even if it is less important than the qualifiers for major tournaments, is no longer a friendly competition. This package from Kylian Mbappé for high-stakes matches, therefore, is enough to accentuate the anger of Blues supporters. On the web, there are many demand the removal of the captain’s armband from Mbappéor even his ouster from the French team. Anthology of comments:

This episode reinforces the current disenchantment of a part of the French public for its prodigy, who is coming out of a failed Euro individually then a disappointing first performance in the League of Nations against Italy (3-1 defeat).