It’s the most important week of the season for Real Madrid. After practically saying goodbye to the Liga title by losing to Mallorca on Saturday (2-1, 7 points behind Barça), Alvaro Arbeloa’s team only has the Champions League to save its season. And in its favorite competition, the club from the Spanish capital will face quite a piece: Bayern Munich, with this quarter-final first leg which will be played tomorrow evening at the Santiago Bernabéu. Suffice to say that an elimination against the Bavarians would already be synonymous with a completely failed season for the Merengues.
And for this match, a man is expected at the turning point: Kylian Mbappé. Often absent or average during the major meetings of the season, the Frenchman must absolutely rebuild himself, while a wave of criticism falls on him in Madrid. In addition to the episode of his knee which has already cost him dearly in terms of image, many believe that the team performs better without him. In Majorca, the Bondynois also produced a very mediocre copy and was particularly singled out. “Kylian Mbappé is very good, but he didn’t understand what Real Madrid was. I think he hasn’t yet understood what this club demands. Thiago Pitarch generates more enthusiasm than Mbappé… Mbappé scores goals, that’s good, but Real Madrid didn’t recruit him just for that”for example, said Josep Pedrerol, famous journalist and presenter of the show El Chiringuito de Jugones.
Arbeloa awaits Mbappé
At a press conference before this match, Vinicius Jr and Arbeloa stepped up to defend the Bondynois. It was the Brazilian who started the hostilities with the journalists: “people say a lot of things. Kylian is here to help us, his goals give us confidence. It’s a complicated match in which the big players make the difference, and Mbappé is one of them. Yes, it bothers me that people say that Mbappé and I don’t defend. But people can say whatever they want. We just have to listen to our coach. What is said outside does not affect us. We can make each other better”.
Image generation in progress
It was then the coach’s turn to clarify things, not without sending a little message to the player regarding tomorrow’s match all the same. “Mbappé came to play this type of matches. Is the team unbalanced? All that matters to me, and what I think about, is that it’s an extraordinary chance to have a player like Mbappé in the team. I put myself in the place of the defenders who have to play against us… Mbappé has perfectly understood what Real Madrid is, he has always dreamed of playing here”replied the former right-back. But there is only one man who can silence all the detractors, and that is KM10…
