When Real Madrid finally signed Kylian Mbappe in June 2024, it was expected that adding perhaps the best player in the world to a team that had won the Champions League and La Liga in 2023/34 would make them unstoppable. With Mbappe joining Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Jr and the rest of the stars at the disposal of legendary manager Carlo Ancelotti, how could Los Blancs be stopped?
The sport of football is a world leader in writing captivating, magical scripts that are often hard to believe. But it also loves nothing more than laughing in the face of the ones we write for it. And so, just as everyone thought Real would dominate, it was Barcelona who came flying out of the blocks.
The Catalans won their opening seven La Liga matches and 11 of the first 12, including – one of those unbelievable plot twists – a 4-0 win against Real in the Spanish capital. In contrast, Mbappe and co drew two of their opening three league matches and three of their first eight and even after 17 matches were down in third in the table. Their star French recruit was not exactly struggling, but nor was he making the start to life in Madrid that many had expected.
However, in recent weeks and months, things have been changing. Ancelotti seems to have pieced together the puzzle and discovered how to arrange his many great attacking players to get the best out of each of them. Mbappe has been scoring more freely and, perhaps just as importantly, Barca’s incredible form has wavered, rather badly in fact.
Real Top of La Liga
After 11 games Barcelona were six points in front of their great rivals. Robert Lewandowski was scoring freely, Raphinha was doing likewise, and laying on plenty of assists too, whilst Mbappe just hadn’t quite settled. In truth, Real had not really made a bad start, and after 14 games they had lost just once, claiming 10 wins. But Barca were on fire.
However, after 20 games of the campaign, Ancelotti’s men finally hit top spot. On Sunday the 19th of January they recorded a routine 4-1 home win over Las Palmas – Mbappe netting twice – to move to the top of La Liga.
| Position | Team | Points | Goal Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 49 | +30 |
| 2 | Atlético Madrid | 45 | +21 |
| 3 | Barcelona | 42 | +35 |
| 4 | Athletic Bilbao | 40 | +13 |
There has been a real change in fortunes, with Barca now seven points behind them, with Atletico Madrid sandwiched in the middle, just two points behind their cross-city rivals. Barcelona have hit a really sticky patch, to say the least, and have won just two of their last nine in the league. They have lost almost half of those games and having looked imperious for so long their young squad has perhaps begun to feel the pressure.
Returning to Real, though, they have managed to quietly keep churning out solid results. They lost at Athletic Bilbao at the start of December but are unbeaten in the league since then. Eight wins in ten has taken them to the summit and whilst Atletico Madrid are in amazing form too, the title now looks theirs for the taking.
Different Picture in Europe
Real remain joint second favourites to win the UCL, along with Barca and Arsenal, the trio priced at 6/1. Given their record in this competition such short odds for Ancelotti and co are understandable but they have a lot of work to do to even make the latter stages.
Prior to their clash with Salzburg last Wednesday, Real foundd themselves way down in 20th in the table. They had the same number of points, just nine, from their first six games as Celtic! Whilst Manchester City only had eight points, nobody would have expected Real to have lost three of their first six games in this year’s Champions League.
Playing a Salzburg side with just one league stage win this campaign proved just the tonic, with Real thrashing the Austrians 5-1. However, even if they win their remaining game they are almost certain to miss out on the top eight. The best they can probably hope for is a seeded spot in the playoffs, achieved by maintaining or improving on their current position of 16th (out of 32), with the top eight going through to the round of 16 automatically.
They end the phase this week with a trip to Brest (currently 13th), so they clearly have a lot of work to do. That said, they should have the class, experience and tournament know-how to get over the line. If and when they do that, they will take some stopping in the competition, so their rivals will desperately be hoping that somehow they fail to qualify from the playoffs.
Is Mbappe Back?
A player as good as Mbappe, surrounded by other hugely talented players, was always going to be a hit. And perhaps it is a little on the harsh side to say his start at his new club was underwhelming. Come what may, though, there are worrying signs for Real’s rivals that the French flyer is really starting to find his feet at the biggest club in the world.
For much of his career the former PSG man has been a huge fish in a medium-sized pond. At Real he remains a big fish, but at the Bernabeu he is one of many, and standards, and most importantly expectations, are higher than he has ever witnessed, certainly in his club career.
Ahead of the clash with Brest, Mbappe boasts 21 goals and three assists from his 31 outings in the famous white shirt. By normal standards that is a decent return but it is not quite what many would have dreamed. However, his output is very much on an upward trajectory and we fully expect his goals-per-game ratio to have improved markedly come May.
The Frenchman failed to find the net in his opening three Liga clashes. He then hit five goals (and an assist) in four matches, a run that should have sparked his Real career into life but that didn’t quite happen. Since late November, however, he has begun to find the consistency that we expect from him, bagging a further seven goals and an assist in nine Liga outings.
He netted a goal in the Copa Del Rey on the 16th of January too, as well as against Barca in the Spanish Super Cup four days before that. He got a goal against Atalanta and Red Bull Salzburg in each of Real’s last Champions League games too, and also scored in the Intercontinental Cup in mid-December, against Mexican side Pachuca. On Sunday, the Frenchman got his first hattrick for Los Blancos, in a 3-0 win away to Valladolid.
With Mbappe almost guaranteed to improve in the second half of the season and Vini Jr and Bellingham also scoring regularly, Real are looking very dangerous. Can they do the double-double? We won’t be betting against it!