Mbappe has not featured for Madrid since April 24 due to a hamstring injury.
(Fran Santiago/Getty Images)
As Real Madrid’s players make their way through the tunnel onto the Bernabeu pitch, they pass a quote from club legend Alfredo Di Stefano printed on the walls: “No player is as good as all of you together.”
Di Stefano, one of Madrid’s greatest icons, anchored the team’s five consecutive European Cups from 1956 to 1960. He later managed the club twice and became honorary president in 2000 before passing away in 2014 at age 88.
That quote now carries a different weight. Criticism of individual stars has become a major talking point as Madrid heads toward a second straight season without a major trophy. Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, and Kylian Mbappe have all faced jeers and whistles from the stands this season, along with president Florentino Perez, the figure most tied to the club’s modern galactico philosophy.
The tension behind the scenes was exposed last week by a training-ground altercation between Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde. But the spotlight has increasingly fallen on Mbappe, the mercurial French striker whom Perez pursued for years before finally securing on a free transfer (with a sizable signing fee) in June 2024.
At that time, Madrid seemed poised to extend their domestic and European dominance after winning La Liga and the Champions League, with Bellingham and Vinicius shining. Now, problems are everywhere.
Looking purely at attacking numbers, there is little to fault Mbappe for. He has been Madrid’s top scorer with 77 goals in La Liga and the Champions League since arriving, winning the Golden Boot in the 2024–25 season. Even when Madrid were eliminated by Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals last month, Mbappe was one of the few players to perform at the expected level, scoring twice across the two legs. He remains almost certain to finish as the tournament’s top scorer this season with 15 goals, close to Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 17 in 2013–14.
The tilemap shows Mbappe has scored nearly double the goals of any other Madrid teammate since his signing, and he dominates the team’s attacking opportunities. He has also overperformed expectations, netting seven more than the quality of his chances suggests. Yet that hasn’t been enough for Madrid fans. In the home game after the Champions League exit, Mbappe was booed and singled out by supporters. Since then, off-field issues have drawn further criticism.
Last week, The Athletic reported on a training-ground row between Mbappe and a member of Madrid’s coaching staff before a game at Real Betis on April 24, a incident sources said added to the growing bad atmosphere. Tensions also rose over his decision to take a trip to Italy with his partner while recovering from injury. His representatives responded with a statement: “A portion of the criticism is based on an over-interpretation of elements related to a recovery period strictly supervised by the club, and does not reflect the reality of Kylian’s commitment and daily work for the team.”
But covering Madrid closely over these two seasons, one question persists: has this journey been worth it?
**The case against Mbappe: Has he done enough?**
When Mbappe’s signing from Paris Saint-Germain was set to become official two years ago, a member of Carlo Ancelotti’s staff pointed to the Frenchman’s off-the-ball statistics, noting his remarkable lack of defensive effort. At the time, they were worried about maintaining team balance after his arrival. That concern now seems prescient.
Across La Liga and Champions League matches, Mbappe is the Madrid player with the fewest tackles, interceptions, and ball recoveries per 90. More damning is his lack of ‘true’ tackle attempts — a combination of tackles won, lost, and fouls committed. In La Liga, he ranks dead last (461 out of 461) among outfield players with around 0.6 such attempts per game.
With few exceptions, Mbappe has been the Madrid player making the least defensive effort. That isn’t necessarily a problem for a star forward, but it becomes one when he plays alongside other attacking galacticos like Vinicius, Bellingham, and Rodrygo. Another issue is how Mbappe connects with Vinicius on the left. Their positions frequently overlap, as shown by the touchmap — both drift to the left flank in build-up. While there have been some exciting moments, the link hasn’t been as seamless as that between Vinicius and Rodrygo in years past.
Their apparent incompatibility raises doubts about squad planning — why would having two dominant left-sided attackers be a long-term solution? — and whether a player who scores so many goals is worthwhile when he impacts the rest of the team’s play. Madrid scored 78 La Liga goals last season and have 70 so far this campaign with three games left, compared to 87 in 2023–24 when the team lacked a clear attacking reference point (Bellingham worked as a false nine and Joselu off the bench) before Mbappe arrived. This could also affect future signings and their development.
Beyond tactics, the most pressing off-pitch issue is dressing-room harmony. As a leader, Mbappe is expected to step up in difficult moments, but that hasn’t always been the case. His signing followed several failed transfer windows. At his presentation in July 2024, Perez said Mbappe had made “a great effort” to join — but the way he turned down Madrid in 2022 left a mark on fans. It’s hard to see what effort he has made, given he is the highest-paid player and has yet to win the Champions League with Madrid.
**In Mbappe’s defense: The Cristiano Ronaldo factor**
Mbappe remains one of the world’s best players. Despite recent doubts, he could shine for France at this summer’s World Cup. He seems to produce his best when he’s the clear protagonist, as with the national team. He won the World Cup at 19 and is the only player other than England’s Geoff Hurst to score a hat-trick in the final, doing so in 2022 — though he ended on the losing side against Lionel Messi’s Argentina.
When former Madrid coach Xabi Alonso gave him a more prominent role ahead of Vinicius in the first half of this season, Mbappe appeared more relaxed and consistently shone. He can improve defensively, but if trusted, his talent, peak age (27), and three years left on his contract suggest he could really impress. In a team that has lost experienced voices like Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos, and Luka Modric, backing Mbappe — a leader by ability — is perhaps even more important.
Despite some media missteps, he has shown strong communication skills in interviews and mixed zones. After Vinicius alleged racist abuse from Benfica’s Argentine winger Gianluca Prestianni in their Champions League play-off first leg in February, Mbappe gave an eloquent defense of his teammate (Prestianni denied racism and received a six-game ban for homophobic conduct).
It’s also worth recalling how Madrid, Perez, and CEO Jose Angel Sanchez have handled similar situations before — particularly with Mbappe’s childhood idol, Cristiano Ronaldo. In Ronaldo’s first two seasons with Madrid, the team only won a Copa del Rey. It took five years for him to lift his first Champions League title in 2014, and there were cryptic moments along the way. In September 2012, Ronaldo didn’t celebrate either of his two goals in a win over Granada and said afterward: “I’m sad and the people at the club know it.” What followed — four Champions League titles and his departure as all-time top scorer in 2018 — proved that the wait can be worth it for superstar forwards like him.
*Additional reporting by Thom Harris.*