Injuries, PSG divorce, and France’s political situation: Kylian Mbappé’s underperformance explained | OneFootball

Kylian Mbappé (25) has looked off the pace for France since they kicked off their EURO 2024 campaign with a turgid 1-0 victory over Austria. The France captain has looked a ghostly facsimile of the player that the nation has come to rely on.

His performances have yet to lift the team out of first gear as they have ground their way to a semi-final showdown against a Spain team that looks confident and hungry for success. However, there are thought to be various mitigating factors for why Mbappé has struggled to reach his high standards in this competition.

Le Parisien writes that the captain arrived in Clairefontaine in May with a backache that prevented him from being able to train properly with the national team. The forward blames his relationship with Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi on this, believing his former president was responsible for the reduced playing time with PSG that has led to him being at a different fitness level than he would normally be used to.

Since joining up with his national side, Mbappé has suffered a series of injury blows. He suffered a problem with his knee in the friendly against Luxembourg, which prevented him from playing more than a bit part in the final preparation game against Canada before the start of the Euros.

Kylian Mbappé: a broken nose and off-field problems

A broken nose suffered in the opening match against Austria has not helped matters and has completely disrupted the forward’s game from missed training while he was medically examined to struggling to find his natural rhythms once he was provided with a protective mask.

In the match against Portugal on Friday evening, Mbappé was unable to play in the final stretch of extra time after he complained to Didier Deschamps about feeling fatigued. However, as Le Parisien writes this exhaustion is not just physical.

The captain is thought to be mentally drained from a tiring conflict with PSG, that has seen him demand payment for missed wages and bonuses. But also Mbappé seems to be struggling with the political situation in France. The French forward has revealed that he is deeply concerned with the trajectory of his nation after the far-right party National Rally won 54% of the vote in France’s first round of elections.

The French team has spoken out against the National Rally on multiple occasions during the tournament, and Mbappé as the star and frequent voice for the team has been the lightning rod for criticism from the party’s leader Marine Le Pen, who in an interview with CNN rejected his criticism of the party as being unrepresentative of French people with a migratory background.

GFFN | Nick Hartland