Kylian Mbappé’s first season with Madrid left a lot of fans scratching their heads.
On paper, his stats were great, bagging a combined 48 goals and assists across all competitions. He even landed the European Golden Boot award.
However, Madrid as a whole underperformed, with the club finishing the season completely trophyless (unless, of course, you count the Audi Cup or mid-season Supercopa de España).
To make matters worse, PSG adjusted to life without Mbappé just fine. They were flying under Luis Enrique and completed a continental treble by winning the UEFA Champions League, a trophy that Mbappé couldn’t get his hands on during a 7-year stint in Paris. In a way, the script couldn’t have gone worse for him.
So, what’s happened with Mbappé here? Some argue the Madrid situation proves he was the problem all along at PSG, while others on social media remain adamant the Frenchman will be back firing next season and Madrid will once again return to trophy winning ways.
To get a better understanding, let’s go over Mbappé’s hit-and-miss debut season with Madrid and how it went down.
Mbappé Wins the European Golden Boot in First Madrid Season
Despite being hit by criticism from all angles, Mbappé’s start to life at Madrid has at least shown he’s not lost his goal scoring form. The 26-year-old scored goals for fun last campaign, bagging 2 hat tricks, 31 goals and 3 assists across 34 league games.
On top of this, he also got 12 goals and 2 assists in cup competitions, most of which came in the UEFA Champions League. All in all, that’s 48 goals and assists across the entire season, so nobody can accuse the Frenchman of being goal shy.
And the most impressive part about it is that Mbappé didn’t get into goalscoring form until the New Year started, so he would’ve bagged even more goals had he found his feet in that August to December period where he initially struggled.
Despite Plenty of Goals, Madrid Failed to Gel Upon Mbappé’s Arrival
Outside of a flurry of goals for Mbappé, almost everything else on the pitch went wrong for Madrid last season.
When Mbappé initially signed on the dotted line in the summer, one of the major concerns was whether or not Madrid would be able to gel as a team. When you’ve got Mbappé, Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham in your attacking line, it sounds like every manager’s dream, but actually getting it to work is a whole other story. Unfortunately for Carlo Ancelotti, he found this out the hard way.
Madrid, one of the biggest and best sports franchises in the world, relied on pure individualism last season. As a team, it just didn’t work. Sure, there were plenty of good results thrown in here and there, and Madrid only finished 4 points behind the league winners Barcelona, but there was also complete lack of cohesion.
In typical Ancelotti fashion, it was simply a case of putting together the best possible lineup and seeing what happened, much like throwing paint against the wall.
The club’s struggles were perhaps best reflected in the season’s “double thrashing” by longtime rivals Barca, who beat them convincingly 4-0 in LaLiga (this particular game saw Mbappé flagged offside a career-high eight times, leading to countless social media memes) and 5-2 in the Supercopa final.
RELATED ARTICLES
Barca then followed it up by beating Madrid a further two times, first with a 3-2 thriller in the Copa del Rey final and then 4-3 at the backend of LaLiga to all but secure the title. Simply put, it was a humiliation, with Barca officially beating Madrid 4 out of 4 times throughout the season, something they hadn’t done since 2010.
In 2025 alone, Madrid also lost to Espanyol, Real Betis and Valencia in the league, none of which reflected well on Mbappé. At the best of times, Madrid looked disjointed, and the front four of Mbappé, Vinícius, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo appeared almost as if it was quite literally disconnected from the rest of the team, reminiscent of the Neymar, Messi, and Mbappé era at PSG.
Madrid’s cause wasn’t helped by the fact they were also missing their two outstanding defenders, Éder Militão and Dani Carvajal, for the majority of the season. When you’ve already got a disconnected attacking line and the core of your defence isn’t there, either, you’re asking for chaos, which is exactly what Madristas got.
The fact Madrid were even able to finish so close to a rejuvenated Barca in the league is actually quite impressive with everything that went on, and there’s a case to be made that Madrid lost the league — Barca didn’t necessarily win it.
One player who can at least walk away with some sense of pride is Dani Ceballos, who looked like one of the only put together players during the season. He started the campaign as 4th choice midfielder and wouldn’t have even been in the squad if Betis had been able to fork out enough money for him in the summer.
Ceballos then came into the starting lineup, carried the midfield for a while, but then eventually got injured and lost form. Even though Madrid fans aren’t exactly complimentary of Ceballos, things would have been a lot worse without him, and that points gap between Madrid and Barca stretched significantly further.
Champions League Woes
The coexistence of Mbappé’s and Vinicius Jr being a problem was already obvious in LaLiga, and it became even more apparent throughout Madrid’s UCL campaign. They just couldn’t get going, despite some occasional flashes of brilliance, like the 5-2 win over Borussia Dortmund early on, which Vini managed to snatch a hat-trick in.
And despite progressing to the quarter-finals, it all came crashing down for Madrid against Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side, who beat them convincingly 5-1 over 2 legs.
Mbappé got destroyed in the media and on social media for this, as did the rest of the Real Madrid squad. Getting dropped out of the UCL was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Madrid fans, which caused a huge media pile on.
Carlo Ancelotti was also more than aware his fate was sealed, with both him and the club swiftly coming to an agreement after this to part ways come the end of the season.
There aren’t many more iconic duos out there than Real Madrid and the Champions League, so to see them go out in a whimper last season was strange. And unfortunately for Mbappé, it summed up the problems he’s inadvertently brought to the club.
In a tournament like the Champions League, you need balance and structure, which Madrid just didn’t have. What makes this situation even worse is that new manager Xabi Alonso will have to figure out a system that accommodates both Mbappé, Vinicius Jr, and the rest of his attackers ahead of next season’s UCL. Otherwise, at least one of them will have to get benched, which could then lead to even further conflict within the squad.
Reports of Team Unrest
Rumours of conflict and team unrest were running throughout most of last season. Heading into the club’s crunch UCL quarter-final tie against Arsenal, Jude Bellingham even had to come out and rubbish reports of internal unrest in the Real Madrid squad, which was said to be largely driven by Vinicius Jr.
The Brazilian has been unhappy ever since Mbappé joined the club, and was also reportedly furious after being subbed off by Ancelotti in the Spanish Super Cup final. Those tensions continued to boil for the remainder of the season, with Vinicius Jr clearly not himself due Madrid’s on-field problems.
Looking Ahead, Will Xabi Alonso Make It Work for Mbappé’s and Madrid?
When last season finally wrapped up, Madrid wasted no time bringing in former Real Madrid legend Xabi Alonso as new manager. The Spaniard made quite the start to his managerial career, winning Bayer Leverkusen’s first-ever Bundesliga title, so it was inevitable Madrid would eventually snap him up. And with the former player now having arrived at Madrid, he’s already got to work on putting a plan in place.
Alonso was looking to get off to a good start this summer at the FIFA Club World Cup, where he took charge of Madrid for the first time. Madrid were looking quite sharp for the most part, too, but they got eliminated in the semi-finals by Mbappé’s former team PSG, much to his embarrassment.
Following Madrid’s exit, reports have since come out that both Mbappé and Vinicius Jr are set to be reprimanded over their lack of effort. There’s even talk that Alonso is considering selling one of the two for the sake of the team’s balance, although this is highly unlikely considering the talent and commercial viability of these two players. Like them or not, they’re what you call “Madrid players”.
Whatever happens ahead of the 2025-26 season, Alonso has his work cut out for him. Barca don’t look like they’ll be dropping off in form anytime soon, so Madrid will need to be at their best to recapture that spot at the top of LaLiga.
But with Madrid’s attacking line dilemma, something will have to give for this to happen, and it could come in the form of seeing Mbappé and Vinicius Jr benched or rotated for large parts of the upcoming campaign.
Conclusion
PSG fans tried to warn Madrid when they signed Kylian Mbappé. He brings goals, but he also brings conflict and team unbalance. Those warnings were ultimately dismissed, and it looks like PSG fans might have been right. It’s at least reflected in Mbappé’s first season with Madrid, where he did indeed bring a bag of goals with him.
However, Mbappé’s presence in the team caused major problems, leading to Madrid following up their treble winning season of 2024 with nothing the next time around. Ancelotti is out the door off the back of this, so there’s a lot riding on new manager Xabi Alonso and whether he’ll be able to fix the “Mbappé dilemma”, which will be no easy task.
One thing for sure is that Mbappé will keep getting goals next season, but will it once again be at the cost of more trophies for Madrid?
RELATED ARTICLES
