Battle for Mbappe await Madrid and PSG after Wednesday’s match
Having disposed of the outdated away-goals rule, Uefa could be forgiven for thinking that the glamour tie in the Champions League has come up with its own fresh format: not two legs but three.
The first 90 minutes of Paris Saint-Germain against Real Madrid produced a 1-0 home win, supplying ample suspense for tonight’s return in Spain.
But the whole tie risks being overshadowed by a third joust, of indeterminate length, between these behemoths over who ends up with the rights to Kylian Mbappé’s peak years.
The issue of the 23-year-old’s future will not keep quiet. The France forward, scorer of the late goal in the first leg, found himself being primed for an unusual serenade for an opposition footballer at the Bernabéu.
So encouraged are Real’s supporters to believe he will join their club in the summer that he may hear a dedicated ovation, at least after 60,000 madridistas have finished booing PSG’s Lionel Messi, an old foe, and Neymar, who is remembered in these parts for having reneged on all-but-agreed deals to join Real.
“I would understand it,” Carlo Ancelotti, the Real head coach, said of the possibility of Mbappé being cheered by most people in the stadium. “The history of the Bernabéu shows that great players are applauded here.”
Real had a bid in excess of £150 million for Mbappé rejected by PSG in August. The pursuit has since intensified, and the more coy Mbappé has become towards PSG’s ever-higher offers for him to renew a contract that expires in June, the more imminent appears his joining — without a transfer fee — Real, the club he has said he dreamt of representing from childhood.
Nobody speaking for Real was sticking obediently to pre-match protocols on the subject. Luka Modric, assigned press-conference duty, answered candidly the question he had been expecting about Mbappé: “Of course I’d love to play alongside him.”
Modric dutifully added: “It’s hard to talk about players who aren’t here because other clubs can get angry.” The midfielder then put aside any concern for PSG anger, saying of Mbappé: “You always want to play with great footballers and he is one. “Right now he is a PSG player; we’ll see what happens.”
As for containing Mbappé, who has shaken off some heavy bruising to his left foot from a collision with Idrissa Gueye in training on Monday, Modric acknowledged that Real face challenges.
Casemiro is suspended, as is Ferland Mendy, the first-choice left back, and a final assessment of Toni Kroos’s recovery from a thigh problem will be made this morning.
“Toni will come through, but being without Casemiro is a setback,” Modric said of his enduring partners in Real’s midfield, “and it means more covering from me. But it’s up to all of us to make up the work, especially defensively.”
Mauricio Pochettino, the PSG head coach, recognised that Mbappé would enter the Bernabéu to special attention. “I have no doubt that whatever might be going on outside, his performance won’t be affected,” Pochettino said. “Kylian is mature for his age and he’s always focused. What he wants is to give everything for his team. He’s outstanding at the moment. His figures speak for themselves.”
Those numbers spell out why PSG dread having to bid farewell to Mbappé. He is their leading scorer this season by a distance, with 24 goals across all competitions, Messi the next best with seven. He has been involved in 12 of their 14 goals in Europe. Domestically, PSG have lost five times. Mbappé was missing from the starting line-up for three of those defeats.
