The new player-manager-director of football - Kylian Mbappe

He's not entertaining to watch at Man City, but that's how he's been instructed to play, and it works for what the team needs. What reignited my interest in football as a whole was when I started following him for Red Bull Salzburg and I saw him utilize his athleticism to bulldoze or sprint past defenders, but those aspects to his game are all but gone nowadays.

He's never been a stepovers, tricks and rainbow flicks type of player, but I thought there was a unique entertainment quality to his peculiar way of awkwardly barging through defenses with brute force. I like to think that I'll be able to see that again one day, at a different club. It might be detrimental to his goalscoring output, but I've never seen anyone else challenge defenders like that with any regularity. It's fun to watch him hog the ball, but he hardly sees the ball anymore.

Varnagel wrote:

sportsczy wrote:

futbol_bill wrote:Haaland takes UEFA player of year ahead of Messi and De Bruyne. No where in sight is the mercenary prima donna! Lol

He's busing playing world cup finals and showing the world (not just Europe) who the boss is.   European club play wasn't the priority this season.  Even then, he scored 41 goals in 43 games (including 7 in 8 in CL) for PSG.


Shows the nonsense that these awards have become.

And btw, Messi making that list is an absolute joke.  FIFA, of course.  But UEFA?  He was atrocious for PSG.

Mbappe is playing for a ridiculously stacked France NT where he ain't their best player (it's still Griezmann). If he represented his father's national team (Cameroon) like Haaland did, Mbappe never sniff world cup finals lmfao.

If Mbappe didn't care about UCL, then he wouldn't have rushed himself back vs. Bayern while half-injured LOL.

Mbappe is simply not on Haaland's level individually...

- Never was Europe's POTY

- Never scored over 50 goals a season

- Never was UCL top scorer

- Never to finish Ballon d'Or podium (Haaland 100% will)


FIFA don't give out Ballon d'Ors anymore, it's France Football nowadays.

UEFA's own rules says national team performances mattered for 2023 UEFA POTY award. It reeks inconsistency for me. How can Messi be clear-cut favorite to win Ballon d'Or despite an awful season for PSG while missing out UEFA's POTY award.

The initial shortlist of players was selected by the UEFA technical study group based on their performance during the 2022/23 season at both club and national team level. The top three nominees were then voted for by a jury composed of the coaches of the clubs which played in the group stages of the 2022/23 UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League, together with the coaches of the men's national teams of UEFA's member associations. A group of journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) were also part of the jury.

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/0284-18c1b70cc3e6-ccc3c4cc0186-1000--2022-23-uefa-men-s-player-of-the-year-award-nominees-announc/

I'm sorry, what? I appreciate this muscled up defensive 10 version of Griezmann as much as the next guy but to actually claim he's better than Mbappé for France is bat shit insane. Not even Griezmann himself woud co-sign this.

Thimmy wrote:He's not entertaining to watch at Man City, but that's how he's been instructed to play, and it works for what the team needs. What reignited my interest in football as a whole was when I started following him for Red Bull Salzburg and I saw him utilize his athleticism to bulldoze or sprint past defenders, but those aspects to his game are all but gone nowadays.

He's never been a stepovers, tricks and rainbow flicks type of player, but I thought there was a unique entertainment quality to his peculiar way of awkwardly barging through defenses with brute force. I like to think that I'll be able to see that again one day, at a different club. It might be detrimental to his goalscoring output, but I've never seen anyone else challenge defenders like that with any regularity. It's fun to watch him hog the ball, but he hardly sees the ball anymore.

I think part of it is game plan and partly it's trying to minimize risk of injury and muscle strains.

Forgetting the goals and the hype for Haaland... the way he's used actually hurts me as a football fan. I saw how he played at Dortmund unlike most here. The guy is being used at 50% of his capacity.

Sure, he may not score 50 goals if he's pushed further away from goal. But someone with his speed and athleticism MUST get space to run into. You have to allow him to dominate with his physical dominance. Come on.

I hope he gets to show who he really is during his prime.

FYI Luis Enrique has convinced Mbappe to act as the trigger for a barca-syle high press and he's doing it rather well. He's playing defense for the first time since his Monaco days. Putting a lot of pressure on the ball.

BarcaLearning wrote:These types of debates has been going on in each era pretty much right, since each era there are different type of top players especially goal scorers. For me even if Haaland goes on to score more goal n more successful in terms of trophies etc. than Mbappe, I think the latter is still far the better footballer all round. There must have been countless players in the past in similar positions, the lesser or less talented all round player achieves more due to various reasons...

Mbappe is perhaps more talented & aesthetically pleasing to watch than Haaland In football however, it's about to win games and nothing is more valuable than goals. Doing so at a very high rate on consistent level is extremely difficult. Haaland is basically the football version of prime Shaquille O'Neal who can score at while through sheer physical dominance.

Mbappe's arguably greatest career accomplishment is being compared to Haaland.

sportsczy wrote:Forgetting the goals and the hype for Haaland...  the way he's used actually hurts me as a football fan.  I saw how he played at Dortmund unlike most here.  The guy is being used at 50% of his capacity.

Sure, he may not score 50 goals if he's pushed further away from goal.  But someone with his speed and athleticism MUST get space to run into.  You have to allow him to dominate with his physical dominance.  Come on.

I hope he gets to show who he really is during his prime.

I completely agree with this. It's quite frustrating to watch him be reduced to little more than a pure goalscorer, but there seems to be a gap in clinical goalscoring talent in football as a whole, and even from his transition from RB Salzburg to Dortmund, you could see him get less involved in alround play and more pushed to the front of the offense. I don't know if I've ever seen another player be as isolated positionally, as Haaland is at City.

For all of the claims that he's only scoring because of KDB or due to his team mates supposedly being such exceptional providers, he gets as little as less than 5 touches on the ball in certain matches, and I think he averages about 20 touches. For someone who's blessed with so much power and athleticism, it just seems like such a massive waste of his abilities, not to mention the entertainment aspect to his game. One can't argue against winning being important, but you'd think there'd be a way to utilize him effectively as more than just a guy who's there for his positioning and finishing ability.