Plus: Is Mbappe’s revenge a dish best served in a Club World Cup semi-final?
By the time Real Madrid walk out to face Paris Saint-Germain in today’s Club World Cup semi-final, it will be just over a month since Xabi Alonso took charge of the club.
It has been up and down of course. There was the 1-1 draw with Al-Hilal, where Madrid could easily have lost but also could have won, with Federico Valverde missing a contentious penalty at the death to leave both sides with a point each.
Then there was the win over Pachuca, with Madrid one-man down for almost the entire game, but still contriving to win 3-1 in a game where Alonso flexed the power and fitness of his midfield. Jude Bellingham and Federico Valverde, runners and fighters both. Then there is Arda Guler, who has been reinvented so far with a centralised role in midfield. He has returned a goal and two assists in five games. Tests against Salzburg, Juventus and Dortmund also had positives and negatives.
Individual players have shone. Antonio Rudiger returned to the side once the veteran centre-back had recovered fully from surgery. Aurelien Tchouameni has been rock solid in front of defence, dropping further back when necessary. Gonzalo Garcia has started all five games so far, and scored four goals. In the quarter-final match against Dortmund, Alonso kept the youngster on till the 86th minute, substituting Vinicius for Kylian Mbappe instead.
But the tie against the reigning European champions will offer Alonso an early opportunity to test his side against the very best.
There are a few tactical points the new manager will have to address for this match. Chiefly, he has to decide whether to field a back four or a back three. Alonso switched to a back three in Madrid’s game against RB Salzburg and his side were much tighter and controlled the game better in comparison to the first two group games that saw Al-Hilal and Pachuca have a run at the Madrid goal, with Thibaut Courtois proving himself his side’s saviour.
Against Dortmund in the last round Alonso in fact deployed a 4-4-2, with Tchouameni, Valverde, Guler and Jude Bellingham as the midfield four. The formation was fluid though, with Fran Garcia at left-back regularly overlapping on the left wing while Tchouameni dropped much deeper to protect the back line. With centre-back Dean Huijsen suspended, Alonso will need to figure out what system to play.
Up front, there is also a decision to make. Gonzalo Garcia has started every match so far and is also tied for first place on the goalscoring charts. Mbappe returned in the last game and scored with a beautiful acrobatic volley to stabilise matters when Dortmund looked like they had a lifeline. The Frenchman was brought on for Vinicius but if Alonso is going to start Mbappe against his former club in the semi finals – and play with two attackers as he has done in recent games – then he has to decide who out of the Frenchman, Vinicius or Garcia makes the bench. Starting all three might mean sacrificing some of that stability in midfield against one of the most ruthless forward lines – ask Inter Milan – in Europe at the moment.
And then, of course, who can ignore the spicy tale of betrayal, revenge, allegations and what not that characterises Mbappe’s reunion with his former club at Metlife Stadium. The France international is still suing the Parisians for €55m in unpaid wages that go back to Mbappe’s departure in 2024, although the events that led to the saga stretch even further back to 2023.
Last month Mbappe brought an additional case against the club for “moral harassment”, which he says went back to the way the club treated him when he announced he would not be extending his contract with them in 2023. Interestingly, Mbappe then dropped the case just a day after scoring against Dortmund to set up the semi-final tie against his former club, his legal team saying that he had “a desire for deescalation” in order to focus on his football.
There is also an extra layer of meaning for the French forward. He left PSG for Madrid to win the Champions League, but then in his departure – or perhaps even because of his departure – PSG won the Champions League. Mbappe said afterwards that there was “no bitterness” and he was happy for them, calling them “the best team in Europe”.
There has been talk of PSG having got rid of superstars – Lionel Messi, Neymar and of course, Mbappe – to become a better team; now becoming a group of warriors fighting for the collective instead of the individual ego.
Will losing to PSG be a bitter pill to swallow for Mbappe, a confirmation that his ex has moved on? It wasn’t them, it was him?
In Madrid, though, Mbappe has settled very quickly. He won the Pichichi award last season, scoring 43 goals. No debutant has ever scored more for the club. Not Ronaldo, not Benzema, not Raul.
He also showed his scoring ability in the last round and remains the focal point of Madrid’s attack. The desire to make a statement against his former club will no doubt be strong.
For Alonso, there would be no discredit if his side were to fall short against PSG. He is just at the starting phase of building his “new era”. There will be many more games in future, many more tests.
But it would also be a serious statement if his Madrid side can match up to and overpower the very best at the first time of asking. The noise around him would grow in a good way. There would be even more confidence in the project to kick off the new season.
It will all unfold within 90 minutes.
