Kylian Mbappé has had an eventful summer. Between his failed Euro, his still-simmering conflict with Paris Saint-Germain, his mixed debut at Real Madrid, the criticism from the press and his supposed internal problems with the Blues, the Bondynois has still not known peace. Present at a press conference this Thursday, before facing Italy tomorrow at the Parc des Princes, the new Merengue was logically expected. But very quickly, we felt that the captain of the Blues was not there to entertain the gallery. Often with a closed face, he moved on quite quickly from the debates about him as well as his first steps in Madrid.
“Very happy to be in Madrid, it’s going very well. We’ve already won a trophy, it’s getting better and better in terms of performance. Everything is going well there, I always come with the same energy to the French team”. The same goes for a possible lasting refocusing in the axis, both in club and in selection. “The position, I can play in all three positions up front. It sometimes requires adaptation, I’ve already played in all three positions, I play where the coach tells me to play. I feel good. Physically, mentally I feel good. The more matches I play, the better it will be.” Finally, he was even briefer on his failed Euro. “It’s behind me. I didn’t try to analyze it too much. It was a failure, we were sad, but I quickly put it out of my mind.”
Mbappé, he has changed
Not spared from controversy and criticism, has Mbappé finally grown tired of all this questioning? In any case, he seems to have adopted a new state of mind. He does his job and that’s it. Everything else, he doesn’t care. When a journalist asked him if the players of the French team had had discussions about their unexciting style of play, the French number 10 made it clear that he doesn’t care what people think. “I don’t know what the guys think. I’ve reached a point in my life where I don’t notice anymore. What people think is the least of my worries. We try to give the best possible version for the French team. In football, you can’t please everyone. The most important thing is to know what you do well or not, and that we don’t live on a planet apart. The rest, we can leave the discussions because there will always be some.”
Although he assured that he had rediscovered his desire to win and his hatred of defeat, Mbappé once again seemed very detached when he was questioned about the Nations League. “For us, there is nothing more important than the French team. Now, we have already won it and it did not cause an extraordinary craze. And when we lost it, it was the end of the world. It is a match, you have to win. At the end of the match (the 2021 final won against Spain, editor’s note), I did not feel that we had won it. In France, I did not feel anything. Before the 2022 World Cup, we lost and we almost went down (to League B), we were burned, it was almost a shame, I had the impression of being in a separate bubble.” Has Kylian Mbappé donned a robot armour that is insensitive to external emotions? Football has changed. And Mbappé too, visibly.
