There was a time when Mbappé was part of Real Madrid’s courtship of Vinicius. At the beginning of 2017, when the Brazilian was 16 years old and they and Barça were trying to seduce him, José Ángel Sánchez, the executive general manager of the Whites, told his agent, Frederico Pena, that if he decided to go to the Bernabéu they would forget about the Frenchman. “We realised that they really wanted him because, without making his debut as a professional, they were comparing him to a player who was breaking through at the highest level in Europe,” he told Real Madrid in 2019. The New York Times Pity, he remembered that he had laughed, doubting whether he had been serious.
Vinicius signed for Madrid, and Florentino Pérez tried until the summer to sign Mbappé, who left for PSG. It took seven more years. By then, before they started looking for a way to fit in on the pitch, the two players had been writing to each other on Instagram for years. Vinicius insisted that what they had been told in 2017 would not happen should happen, as the Frenchman said at his presentation: “He sent me messages: ‘Come to Madrid. We’re going to score goals together.’”
By then, the Brazilian had already won two Champions League titles and was on the cusp of the Ballon d’Or. When Mbappé arrived, the club made another move similar to that of the 2017 courtship. They offered Vinicius a pay rise to sign the newcomer, something that, according to sources familiar with the talks, they also passed on to Bellingham. The Brazilian’s advisors preferred to postpone the matter. The proposal referred only to the base salary and left out the bonuses that Mbappé receives when he arrives on a free transfer. They believed that the scenario could change soon, with the possible Ballon d’Or and perhaps another Champions League.
The club was looking for balance before they started looking for it on the pitch. Ancelotti too, who had one of those choices on his desk that mark status, the penalty taker. He left it in their hands: “It is right to give the responsibility to both of them. They have the same quality to take the penalty, and I don’t want to affect one by choosing,” he explained this Saturday, hours before hosting Betis on Sunday (21.30, Dazn), seven points behind Barça.
The first was scored on Thursday by Vinicius in Las Palmas, the second equaliser against an inferior opponent, and it is the only goal they have scored in La Liga. This drought is the last link in the chain of imbalances in the game of this Madrid with one less midfielder and one more attacker. Ancelotti has referred to how they have fallen apart: “We have not been able to have a compact block throughout the game. We have suffered in the recovery and we have to improve it with better collective work,” he said this Saturday.
He also didn’t like what happens when they have the ball: “The game is slow. There isn’t much movement and the ball reaches the forwards when the team is already closed,” he said on Thursday. Madrid’s passes are much less inconsequential than last year. StatsBomb measures to what extent a pass brings the player closer to goal. It takes the position where the player has the ball and checks how many times a play like that has ended in a goal: if it is 5 out of 100, it assigns 0.05 points. If after the next move they reach a situation that ends in a goal 10 times out of 100, it means that the pass has added 0.05 points. If it moves to a position from which only one goal is scored in 100 times, the pass is worth -0.04.
Last year, Madrid added 0.72 points of threat per game from passing, in line with City, for example, who recorded 0.77. However, this season, the threat from passing by Ancelotti’s more predictable team has dropped to 0.41, the second worst in the league, a 43% drop.
As Ancelotti explained, the ball is not reaching his forwards as it should, who are choosing worse shots, with fewer chances of turning into goals. Last season Mbappé took shots that on average had a value of 0.12 expected goals, according to StatsBomb, while the ones he has tried at Madrid (17, more than anyone else in Europe) have 0.08, 33% worse. Vinicius has gone from 0.15 to 0.09, 40% worse. It is only the beginning and Ancelotti, who hopes to adjust the general puzzle, does not seem worried: “Offensively we are not going to have a problem. We have never had it and we are not going to have it when we have the best in the world.” Something similar to what Mbappé said when he arrived: “Great players are made to play together. I will have no problems playing with Vinicius.”
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