The day after Valentine’s Day, February 15, the madridistas who had traveled to Paris for the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 received Kylian Mbappé at the Parc des Princes as if he already belonged to them. An hour before the game, near the corner where the Spanish fans were, the locals started warming up, unfolding a wide range of chants for a footballer who they believe only time separated him from the Bernabéu. The French public watched the scene with indifference and the striker continued on his own. Three hours later, in the 94th minute, Mbappé defeated Madrid from the same corner of affection after a long personal siege, but not even the last-second loss (1-0) seemed to spoil the white fans’ love by Bondy’s boys. It was only a matter of time before it was theirs, they thought.
The biggest soap opera of recent times, peppered with plenty of show and propaganda, continued its run for months, with the inevitable twists and turns of each series, but at the Bernabéu, the youngsters never doubted Mbappé’s white future until the end. They fantasized about the dimensions of the presentation… It was like that until just before the result left Madrid like a bride planted in front of the altar. The bomb exploded in his face at the worst possible time and the shockwave has had very notable consequences for the club in the short and medium term, which also do not dissuade the player from his current nemesis, club-state PSG.
From the start, the unexpected script twist happens a week before the Champions League final, with the erosion and noise that implies, and whatever happens in Paris, Kylian doesn’t compromise on his sporting schedule. In the last two courses, all Valdebebas sketches presented the attacker as the culmination of the project of a team that, with Modric (36 years old) and Benzema (34) at the helm, is experiencing the final push of their old guard.
There are two players in the world who are destined to dominate football and marketing over the next decade, Erling Haaland and Mbappé, and Madrid had the Frenchman as their priority theme. However, in July, when the squad becomes active again, none of them will cross the gate of the sports city. The Norwegian, who was also interested in the Chamartín company, will do so at City. Two weeks ago the Dortmund striker’s arrival in Manchester was announced and nobody flinched at the Castellana. So Mbappé was only a matter of time.
The arrival of the pandemic and its serious economic consequences made it even more necessary to prioritize and Madrid made it clear that they play for PSG. During two campaigns, transfer costs were reduced to almost zero and all proceeds from the sale, which was not scarce (180 million), were used to fatten the pig to mitigate losses and be able to carry out the operation. There was hardly an exception of 30 million, the arrival of Camavinga last summer, and only when on the last market day the takeover of Mbappé was ruled out at the time due to the bargaining wall from Qatar, owner of the Paris entity.
Despite the serious inconveniences of the Covid, the austerity plan had paid off and the white leadership launched an unprecedented offensive in the last week of August: three consecutive offers for 160, 180 and 200 million for a player who ended his contract in a year. The decision not only showed financial strength at a time of severe global crisis, but also served to measure the importance Madrid attached to Mbappé’s arrival. A thermometer of the disappointment left by the soccer player, compounded by the sensitive moment in which it occurs.
With the imminent and inevitable physical demise of several of his most important men, the epicenter of the next decade should be Kylian, the man who picks up testimony from his friend Benzema, who doesn’t stop wooing the young man every time they coincide in selection . The nine-year-old Frenchman is enjoying the best season of his career (44 goals and 15 assists) but every course that passes is a bullet less in his legs. Since last summer, his return to France has also increased the strain on his body, which has already shown signs of weakness this season despite his goalscoring (almost 10 games lost to injuries or breaks compared to six games last season). The proximity of the World Cup and the frustration accumulated over his five-year absence from the national team rule out Karim’s short-term retirement from the national team.
This season, under the gentle gaze of Carlo Ancelotti, Los Blancos have finally found fruit in their policy of attracting young talent. In attack Vinicius has exploded and Rodrygo has offered big spikes but Benzema’s age forced him to think about deep moves because in the current squad there is just a huge desert behind with Mariano, Jovic and Hazard’s loss. The chosen one was Mbappé, the name that everything has been trusted and whose continuity in Paris forces us to reconsider Madrid’s sporting plan in the medium and even short term.
A serious sporting setback to come with victory at PSG’s offices in Qatar. Beaten on the pitch in March in the Champions League for Madrid’s first comeback, a fall that damaged the image of the project’s solidity, now its economic strength and the diplomatic and political commitment of the club and France have given the Parisian company a chance institutional victory no less than its declared enemy.
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