It's potentially the worst-kept secret in football right now. Kylian Mbappe is only a few months away from penning a deal with Real Madrid as a free agent, after informing Paris Saint-Germain earlier this season that he wouldn't be extending his contract beyond this season. While we await formal communication from both the France captain and the 14-time UEFA Champions League winners, Soccer Laduma's Kurt Buckerfield caught up with London-born Spanish football expert Sid Lowe, who is based in Madrid, to understand the feeling in the country's capital ahead of Mbappe's expected arrival. How will Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo Goes all fit into the same team? How will the dressing room be impacted? Lowe, author of the 2012 book Fear and Loathing in LALIGA: Barcelona vs Real Madrid, sets the scene.
On the questions surrounding Mbappe's arrival…
The obvious thing, really, with Vinicius, Mbappe and Rodrygo, and it's a recurring question, is where exactly do you put them? Because Real Madrid this season have already, I would say, had difficulties finding a natural place for Vinicius and Rodrygo because both of them prefer to play on the left. I say "on the left" but "on the left" is possibly not an entirely accurate way of putting it because they both play, of course, coming in from the left. So, their finishing point isn't necessarily the left-hand side, but their starting point is the left-hand side. And they obviously do that in slightly different ways in that Vinicius is a bit more likely to go on the outside than diagonally, whereas Rodrygo is more likely to drifting inside thing. His movement is, I suppose, more horizontal than Vinicius. And then, of course, you've got Mbappe who plays as a forward, from the left as well. In terms of his movement and the spaces he occupies, I suppose there's a combination of the two of them. Rodrygo has been open, which is unusual for a footballer I think, in saying he prefers to play from the left. And the reason I say it's unusual is because when you start saying that it sounds like a complaint and managers tend not to like it. In Rodrygo's case, saying that sounds like a challenge to Vinicius' place and that's obviously not always great. But I think it says something about the assuredness of the two of them, both Vinicius and Rodrygo, that Rodrygo feels like he can say that.
On the feeling in Spain that someone will need to leave…
I think what we've seen is (Carlo) Ancelotti trying to find a way of making the two of them fit together. If you look, for example, at the Manchester City game, he actually swapped their positions over almost because they sort of nominally both play up front, but Vinicius slightly to the left, Rodrygo slightly to the right and Bellingham going through the middle. In the first of the City games, you had Rodrygo going to the left and Vinicius in what I suppose you could almost call a full striker role. Coming into the middle and dropping off, trying to find space, but his starting point being the middle. And that actually worked reasonably well. And then there is the question of how Bellingham fits into all of this because he has been playing a lot of this season as that sort of full striker or as a free midfielder or as a No. 10 almost. But then in defensive phases of the game, playing on the left. You've got this very, I would say, heavy loading of the team on the left-hand side. And yes, as your question suggests, that's exactly where Mbappe would fit in. So, how do you resolve a question like this? Well, this is part of the discussion in Spain. What do you do with Mbappe when he comes? Because his position is currently occupied by just Vinicius, who is quite possibly the best player in the team, but by two of them. And I think that is quite important and significant. I think there are plenty of people in Spain who believe the conclusion to this is that someone gets sold. In fact, Predrag Mijatovic, who, of course, is a former Real Madrid player and former Sporting Director (2006-2009), works on the radio here in Spain and has said that he thinks someone has to go and the likelihood is that it will be Rodrygo. I don't know that Madrid necessarily wants to sell anyone, but I think if they thought they could sell someone for good money and that it would be a nontraumatic departure… in other words, let's say for argument's sake you got 60 or 70 million euros for Rodrygo, you would almost be funding the Mbappe move. And I don't think there is anyone really, despite the fondness for Rodrygo, who wouldn't see that as an upgrade.
On how Mbappe fits in the dressing room…
I think there's a little bit of a doubt about Mbappe's fit in the dressing room as well in terms of personalities, but I think that's just the natural doubt of the unknown. I don't think that's an actual doubt of talking about someone who is an absolute superstar, who has a social and political power within France, that can potentially be problematic. I think that one of the good things about this is that Real Madrid don't have a bad dressing room at all. They don't have particularly difficult characters in there. Even people like Vinicius, who, when you watch him, because of the way he plays, you can imagine him being arrogant, but he is not really. And of course, they have the ideal manager in terms of managing that kind of balance of the team. And I think that's one of the things that they look at and think 'This is a way through this'. There's no doubt that there's a question about the fit, there's no doubt that it provides a degree of doubt in terms of how it all goes together, in terms of 'could it be that this might not work?' I think much more important is the sense of excitement. The sense of excitement that this team, that is absolutely walking the league this year, that's now in the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League, that has beaten Manchester City, has done it a year ahead of schedule, has done it at a time when everyone thought 'there isn't really a forward'. Now again, the question is: Is Mbappe really a forward? I think he can play there, but they've done it without him. And, more than anything else, there's an excitement that says: 'Bloody hell, this team is already really good and we're about to add probably the best player in the world to it'. And, also by the way, they're going to get him for free.
On Real Madrid finally landing PSG's record scorer…
If you look at the way the narrative has been constructed and at the way Real Madrid have certainly tried to condition a narrative or encourage people to see it in a particular way, there's no doubt Real Madrid are trying to make a point of having not just got their player but having won the fight as well. 'We got him for free, PSG had to swallow'. I think there is partly a degree of frustration from Real Madrid that it has taken this long, and I think in a way they are trying to counter that through this construction of a story line and of a narrative, but I don't think there's any doubt that they look at this as 'we won, we got the player, maybe later than we wanted, but we got him for free. PSG paid him an absolute fortune. Yes, we were made to look a little silly a few years ago, but now we've got him'. So, for all the doubts about where he fits, there is a bottom line, which is another brilliant player is joining a really brilliant team and so I don't think it's a major concern. I also think if you look at the way it has been handled by Real Madrid, and if you look at PSG, there is a really truly simple answer to this question of where he fits, and it's that Rodrygo plays right, Mbappe plays down the middle, Vinicius plays on the left. There's a large degree of flexibility in that, there's a great degree of movement between those players within those positions and that it all fits together. I think you've seen Luis Enrique change the way he uses Mbappe at times this season. He has used him as a No. 9, albeit with a degree of freedom of movement. The long and the short of it is, having gone around the houses, is that he is really good, and he is coming into a really good team and they're going to win everything!
