In an interview with AceOdds, former Dutch international Rafael van der Vaart had strong words to discuss the subject of Kylian Mbappé. The former Real Madrid midfielder was keen to defend the French striker and believes that public opinion is too harsh on him and his record, both in the French team and at Real Madrid.
“When we say that Mbappé is arrogant, it makes me a little angry, and people are also talking about it now because PSG have won two Champions League titles. Everyone says: “Yes, we can see that he was the problem”, and make no mistake… PSG has a lot of good players, but not a single indisputable world star. He was the world star of the club. When you play with a player like him on your team, the other good players get erased a little. He was under pressure and it was he who was singled out when PSG didn’t win. Now he’s gone and they share this pressure. It’s a lot easier for them than when he was here. He has always scored a lot of goals, just like he does at Real Madrid. He was the one under the pressure to score the goals. Real Madrid fans keep criticizing him and I don’t know why. He was – by far – their best player this season! Mbappé is proving himself at Real Madrid, as is Cristiano Ronaldo – the team around him has not been up to the task. You know, in a big club like Real Madrid, everyone is criticized excessively. When (Cristiano) Ronaldo played there and he didn’t win, he was always the one blamed. But what I noticed when I played it is that it’s not good to have only one big star. Look, I was number 10 and when I had the ball maybe I could have made a better choice, but if Ronaldo was on the left everyone was passing the ball to him, which is not a good thing. It’s difficult to have a big star in your team, but you have to know how to manage it, because at the end of the day, Ronaldo scored 60 goals per season and Mbappé does the same. Other Real Madrid players haven’t been good enough this season. He scored all the time, but imagine if you try to be the best all the time, it’s hard. I’m always so frustrated because it’s so easy to say that Mbappé is nothing, and that’s just not the truth. »
