France captain Kylian Mbappe has come in for plenty of criticism in his home country, after being deemed fit enough to start Real Madrid‘s 2-0 win over Villarreal over the weekend, but not to be called up by Les Bleus this week. The 25-year-old is seeking his best form.
That is according to Cadena SER, who say that Mbappe had agreed with France manager Didier Deschamps to remain in the Spanish capital in order to help him get back to his best form. Mbappe is undergoing a mini-preseason under fitness coach Antonio Pintus this week in order to get back into his best shape. This week he will be doing weights and fitness training.
In his 11 games so far for Los Blancos, Mbappe has 7 goals and an assist, but feeling is that he has not yet hit the heights some expected of him. Real Madrid also face a crucial week on the return of club football, first facing Celta Vigo, before taking on Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona. The same outlet also says that France’s medical staff also understands the move.
It is worth remembering that Mbappe had a truncated preseason as it was, returning late from the Euros before joining up with the side a week before they were in action in the European Supercup. Mbappe came off an injury to face Lille and Villarreal too, just a week beforehand. All the same, it is a move that is unlikely to win him too many plaudits in France.
First, there was an article pre-Lille that went into great depth about how Madrid typically overestimate publicly how long a player will be out due to injury “just in case there’s a setback”, which is on its face nonsense because they could just as easily report accurately and announce a setback if there was one. The timeline for Mbappe coincidentally overlapped his national team selection.
Then we find out that “oh, it wasn’t as bad as we thought” when he plays against both Lille and Villareal. Deschamps is publicly suspicious that he was lied to, and justifiably so.
Now, this word salad attempting to tell us that he wasn’t fit enough for international duty, but he was fine for the Champions League and La Liga.
You’re not fooling anyone, Madrid mouthpiece.