Kylian Mbappe grew up idolizing Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid and made his presentation at the Santiago Bernabeu in homage to the greatest player in the club’s storied history, but while there is a lot of mutual respect and admiration between the aging Portuguese legend and the young French international, even Cristiano was skeptical about Mbappe improving Madrid all along.
As PSG head for their second straight Champions League Final under Luis Enrique without Mbappe in the side and with a “team as the superstar” approach around reigning Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembele while Madrid head for a second straight season without a trophy as their entire locker room falls apart, Madridistas can only look back and wonder where did it all go wrong.
For many, the common denominator is Mbappe, who arrived to the Bernabeu in 2024 after Real Madrid had already won both La Liga and the Champions League behind a fluid front three of Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo Goes, and Jude Bellingham without a single striker.
Real Madrid are not better with Kylian Mbappe
There are more reasons than just Kylian Mbappe’s addition for Real crashing down, but perhaps the wages spent on KM10 could have been used for a new midfielder to replace Toni Kroos and those center backs Carlo Ancelotti was always asking for.
All the way back in 2024 when Mbappe first moved to Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo warned Madridistas that while Mbappe is a great player, he couldn’t say for sure if Real would be better – or, in fact, actually worse – with the addition of the 2018 World Cup winner.
At the time, Ronaldo told his former Manchester United teammate and close friend Rio Ferdinand, “I can’t tell you. Mbappe will go there now. How would you say Madrid is going to be better or going to be… We don’t know. Let’s see. I think Madrid will keep strong, but I don’t know if they will be better than last year. I don’t know. Let’s see. Only God knows. But they have a fantastic team, fantastic players.”
Roughly two years later, Cristiano Ronaldo’s word of warning for Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappe seems prescient. As Cristiano said, Real Madrid is not PSG, and though, ironically enough, PSG are now THE team to beat in European football without their former poster boy, it is true that Mbappe has not lived up to the pressure of Madrid. The hunger his idol had is not within Mbappe, who does not chase for the ball after he loses it, position himself in the right way for goals, or show that urgency to win.
Real Madrid are worse with Mbappe, and while Cristiano did not come out and say that, he sort of implied it at the time by hinting at the possibility when very few people as attached to Madrid would have dared contemplated it.
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