2023-07-22 18:08:48
The sidelining of the superstar, deprived of a tour in Japan and Korea, is just one more episode in the showdown between him and the Parisian club. Back on the main passes of arms between the two camps.
Started in June, the second Mbappé-PSG soap opera is gaining momentum every day. Unless it is only one long plot in several acts, the beginning of which dates back to last summer. After a first chaotic “drama” where some saw the superstar stay in France while others sent him to Real Madrid, the captain of the Blues signed a new contract with PSG, suffused with sweet words and ambitious flights. A year later, the tone has changed completely and Kylian Mbappé has never been so close to the exit. Between the two, there were several months of tension which rose crescendo, punctuated by allusions, unspoken words and other small spikes often sent at key moments of the season. A look back at several notable episodes.
The «penaltygate»
Excluding transfer, it was a bit of the other big change within the Parisian hierarchy. Christophe Galtier propels Mbappé, official shooter for penalties, instead of Neymar, yet almost imperial in the exercise. Way to show the French that the club intends to expand its prerogatives and make it its number one star. On August 13, 2022 against Montpellier, Mbappé misses at 11 meters. A second attempt comes. The Frenchman wants to go back, but Neymar also places himself at the height of the white circle and ends up winning. The episode offends his friend, who stops his race later in the match when a dangerous situation arises. Nor does he celebrate his first goal of the season moments later. After the meeting, the squabble grew: Neymar would have “liked” several posts critical of Kylian Mbappé on what is now called “penaltygate”. “You have to know how to share the cake,” Mbappé closed in front of the press, after the file had been settled internally. First turbulence.
#PivotGang
A two-word hashtag posted on an Instagram story. Kylian Mbappé knows what he is doing when he posts the falsely mysterious #PivotGang in September 2022. The club’s followers immediately link this post to the player’s exit ten days earlier, unhappy with his positioning on the pitch, chosen by then coach Christophe Galtier. After a Blues match, Mbappé says what he prefers: playing in a duo with a striker, like Olivier Giroud in the France team: “I play differently, I am asked other things here.” Under the tricolor jersey, “I have a lot more freedom” while in Paris, “I am asked to do the pivot”.
From winter, the desire for elsewhere
A pre-World rumor in Qatar, in November, agitates the European locker room. The superstar would like to leave PSG from the January transfer window, probably for Real Madrid, a desire which the player has never made a secret of. The reason: the recruitment proposed by the Parisian club would not meet the player’s requirements. He would have liked to see Robert Lewandowski land, who finally lands at Barça. Scorer the same evening, the person concerned defuses the file in the corridors of the Park. Without however blurring the doubt that the rumor is part of his close guard.
“Eat well, sleep well”
As often with Mbappé, it’s a matter of a sentence dropped at the microphone, which at first seems innocuous but whose subtext is loaded with meaning. In the round of 16 of the Champions League, PSG has just lost at home (0-1) against Bayern Munich. The superstar stops in front of the Canal+ and RMC Sport microphones. “Above all, all our players must be in good health. Let everyone eat well, sleep well.” For many, straight after a club defeat, this advice is aimed at teammates with a dubious pace of life. Starting with Neymar, sometimes connected to his console at 4 a.m. When the mayor of Bougival, where the Brazilian lives, does not complain about the parties organized at the player’s home.
“Our maximum is that”
This time, the message is even clearer but the recipients are, there, the leaders of the club. After the failure against Munich in the return match, the star striker summarizes the state of the troops, severe on the overall level of PSG: “As I said at my first Champions League press conference this season, we were going to do the maximum. Our maximum, that’s it, that’s the truth.”
“Not the Kylian Saint-Germain”
This is one of the big turning points in this latent conflict. Because the episode will heat up already tense camps. Mbappé first: the player was not made aware that he would be featured alone in a club re-membership campaign clip. The player reacts in stride, knocking out this decision taken without his knowledge on Instagram: “I do not agree with this video published. That’s why I fight for individual image rights. PSG is a big club and a big family, but it is certainly not Kylian Saint-Germain. By asserting that he is not bigger than the club, the player makes obsolete the argument of Nasser al-Khelaïfi, who keeps repeating this maxim to justify the hardening of PSG vis-à-vis his superstar. The damage is done, but the player is not sanctioned.
The Letter of Discord
This is the tipping point. Exit the speeches, the Mbappé camp goes to the upper stage in mid-June, sending a missive to the management of the club to inform him that he would not activate his third year of contract. So here he is free to leave for free in June 2024, with a considerable shortfall (we are talking about 150 million euros at least) for the club. Who responds with a letter dated July 3, evoking “enormous prejudice” and castigating “a lack of sincerity” from Mbappé. The letter may end with “dear Mr. Mbappé, dear Kylian”, the divorce becomes an increasingly concrete hypothesis. At the time, Libé analyzed the thing as follows: “Clearly, Mbappé lets PSG decide: either the club sells him this summer against his stated will, which does not mean that it is real, or he sits on at least 150 million euros since the player will be free at the end of the next season. A lose-lose choice for Qatar.”
“He can’t leave for free”
An unequivocal focus. On July 5, the president of PSG, Nasser al-Khelaïfi, speaks in person, on the occasion of the presentation of the new Parisian coach, Luis Enrique. Kylian Mbappé “cannot leave for free. And that’s the verbal agreement we had with him, and he had actually said in interviews that he wouldn’t go free. And that’s non-negotiable.” The player, who is on vacation and trudges in the United States, remains silent. Just like his entourage, who has never commented on this release since.
PSG, a “dividing club”
Let’s recall the context: an interview granted by Mbappé to France Football as part of the presentation of the trophy for best player of the season, on June 12, exactly the day the letter was sent, and before the development of “NAK”. The interview comes out three days later, and stokes the fire. Two passages particularly anger the Qataris. There are these words about the Champions League: “I could do better compared to my standards. But no magic either. Sometimes in football you face what is called a glass ceiling. That’s why it’s not too much of a question for me but more for above. Then those on the club. “I think playing at Paris-SG doesn’t help much because it’s a divisive team, a divisive club,” said Mbappé. Difficult to measure the exact repercussions, but if we put together everything that has happened for the past year, this pass of arms will have resulted in his being sidelined from the group. The attacker is now deprived of a preparatory trip to Japan and South Korea. A new stage in the aggravation of tensions. What will be next?
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