Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said Monday he wants striker Kylian Mbappe to focus on scoring goals over pressing to help the team.
The Spanish and European champions have not been at their peak this season and are still searching for the best way to incorporate the former Paris Saint-Germain superstar following his arrival this summer. Madrid lost on the road at Lille in their last Champions League outing and host Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday in a rematch of last season’s final, which they won to earn a record-extending 15th European crown.
“I prefer that (Mbappe) scores goals than he presses,” Ancelotti told a news conference. “The central striker position in our team has not changed, I ask him the same I asked of Karim (Benzema, who left in 2023). To be well positioned and to be ready every time we get the ball back to make a rapid transition.” Mbappe has scored eight goals for Madrid in 12 games across all competitions this season, compared to Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski’s 14 in 12 appearances. The forward drew criticism in his homeland for not playing in France’s recent Nations League games after recovering from a thigh injury.
One of the knock-on effects of Mbappe’s arrival at Madrid is a more defensive role for Jude Bellingham, who was Los Blancos’ key attacking figure last season. The former Borussia Dortmund midfielder is yet to score for the club this season in nine games, after he netted 10 in his first 10 appearances last year.
“We’re satisfied with his work… because he works a lot on the pitch, he’s always there, he competes, fights, sacrifices himself,” said Ancelotti. “The truth is he hasn’t scored the goals he did last year, but the surprise isn’t this year, it’s last year, he scored a heap of goals that no-one expected… We’ve always scored goals and we’ll always score goals, we have players with great attacking talent up front… so for us at this moment, the work he is doing is much more important for us.”
Ancelotti said Madrid’s array of attacking stars, also including Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo Goes, means the team enjoy end-to-end matches. “I want (rock and roll football) because I have players with these characteristics,” continued Ancelotti. “We find it harder to play a game based on possession and control because we don’t have players with characteristics to play in reduced spaces. A back and forth game suits us well, but we’re focused on defending better as we did very well last year.”
Dortmund trained in Germany before flying to Madrid on Monday, with German media suggesting they were afraid of the Spanish giants watching their session. “We need a strong mentality, the game has to go our way to be able to survive here,” Dortmund coach Nuri Sahin told a news conference after arriving at the Bernabeu. The former Madrid player said his struggling team, seventh in the Bundesliga, needed to work together to stop Mbappe, Vinicius and company.
“It’s only possible (to succeed) as a collective, not just against these two, but against all of Real’s players,” he continued. “Of course, every coach thinks of (a plan) and the lads know what to do, but we also want to be brave.” Midfielder Julian Brandt said the key was closing down Madrid players quickly. “It’s about working even more defensively… you probably shouldn’t give them any breathing room to get close to our goal,” said Brandt. “The defence will be a big factor, but we don’t just want to focus on it, we also want to get forward.”
