The Mbappé nightmare | Soccer

Kylian Mbappé has not yet arrived in Madrid – if he finally arrives, which finally seems to be the case – and some of us are already thinking about everything that could happen when he leaves. Or worse still: in everything that is about to be precipitated within 10 minutes of the prodigious Frenchman putting on the Real Madrid shirt and the recurring question in Carlo Ancelotti’s press conferences, or in the Government control sessions, be it When is Erling Haaland coming? Or Stephen Curry. Maybe even Taylor Swift, because sometimes you no longer know where the legitimate objectives of the white ocean liner end and where the covers of Variety.

The imminent signing of the Frenchman is experienced in Barcelona with a mixture of resignation, anger and even a point of hope. “The best thing that can happen to Barça is for Mbappé to sign for Madrid, time will prove me right,” an acquaintance tells me via social networks. About the second I have few doubts: time always ends up proving us right in some way, because even Mbappé will age, sooner or later, and then Madrid may no longer be of much use when he has hip surgery or moves with a cane around the city, visiting construction sites. I, who am a disbeliever and a Galician at the same time, that is to say, redundant, look at this statement with the utmost caution because saying that signing the best footballer in the world for the eternal rival is good for your own club seems as risky to me as maintaining that a war can be lost due to an excess of arsenal.

The truth is that imagining the merengue forward for the next season is imposing, at least on paper. There will always be a hopeful resistance that egos outweigh talent, but history is full of confirmations to the contrary. So, to say the least, I don’t remember any team that crashed against its own expectations due to quality, by accumulating so many good players that the fans took to the streets demanding that one of the bad ones play. Or if. During the reign of the Galacticos, a debate spread between the press and fans that promulgated the importance of Claude Makelele over Zidane himself, who had a hard time adapting in the first months, but not so much to other great footballers as to the natural tendency of the madridismo to get nervous with the figures.

Rivers of ink will also flow about what Mbappé will or will not earn. One of the most recognizable paraphilias in the big clubs—both Real Isabel and Fútbol Club Fernando are involved in this—lies in a certain fixation on pretending that their players are not motivated by money, that they practically agree to play for glory and the consommé that the two greats of Spanish football always guarantee you. Fortunately, the city of Madrid offers innumerable employment possibilities so that the Frenchman can earn a decent salary without the need to offend the Real Madrid fan – let alone the culé – who would prefer to see his team in the Second Division rather than paying a footballer. the salary you deserve.

“We must always set the bar high, otherwise we will not progress,” said the future LaLiga star a few years ago and, from what seems, the first signing in modern white history that will not be paid for by selling shirts, but rather cups and other things. objects with self-help phrases: the nightmare, therefore, had only just begun.