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French star Kylian Mbappe’s start with Real Madrid, the defending Spanish champions, has not been as hoped after a 1-1 draw with Mallorca last week, but he and his team are looking for a fresh start when Mbappe makes his first match at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday against Real Valladolid.
Commenting on the opening draw, Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti said the Spanish champions lacked “balance”.
Sunday’s match will be an opportunity for Real to regain its balance against the team owned by former Real striker and one of the best strikers ever, the Brazilian Ronaldo.
Mbappe hopes that his career will be crowned with success. Style ARonaldo is a phenomenon, but he wants his influence on Los Blancos to be better, after the Brazilian only won the league title once, while he failed to lift the Champions League trophy during his time with the royal club between 2002 and 2007.
One of the biggest obstacles that prevented Real from winning many titles was its star-studded squad, including, but not limited to, the huge number of prominent strikers, in addition to the loss of one of its most important pillars, the Frenchman Claude Makelele.
Ancelotti included the attacking quartet of Mbappe, Brazilians Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo, and Englishman Jude Bellingham, in the first official match of the season in the European Super Cup against Italian Atalanta, which ended with a 2-0 victory for Real Madrid, then against Mallorca, but he criticized the lost balance after the two matches.
“We had to improve and have more fighting spirit, we learn from these games and that is clearly the problem,” Ancelotti told reporters last week. “We need to defend better, we need more balance.”
The biggest problem is that Mbappe, Vinicius or Rodrygo prefer to play on the left side.
Another reason is that with the participation of the three attackers, Bellingham is forced to play more in the middle, while last season he contributed in his attacking role to Real winning the league and Champions League titles.
Although Real are considered a big candidate on paper to overcome Valladolid, who beat Espanyol in the first stage, Ancelotti hopes that his team will reach the required harmony and balance as soon as possible.
Mallorca defender Pablo Maffeo admitted: “When I saw them running towards me, I prayed to God and asked myself: What am I doing here?” But the presence of this dangerous quartet is a double-edged sword, as it forces opposing teams to make a superhuman effort to limit their danger, and Mallorca succeeded in doing so.
