A tale of Haaland and Mbappé
PSG and Manchester City are the new superpowers of world football, but how alike are they?
On the same day that PSG was scheduled to play Benfica in the Champions League group stage, Spanish newspaper La Marca published an article claiming that the French superstar, Kylian Mbappé was dissatisfied with his current club, just some months after renewing his contract with the Parisian side and becoming the best played football player in the world. According to the article, PSG were not fulfilling the promises they had made when negotiating his new contract.
That this came up right before an important international game in the Champions League comes as no surprise for a team that seems to always be surrounded by infighting, gossip and drama. Before Mbappé, there was the perennially dissatisfied Neymar. Now, former PSG number one diva is forced to play second fiddle to the new PSG number one diva. And, of course, both seem to dislike each other. Allegedly, just this summer, Mbappé demanded that Neymar be sold to another club. PSG tried, but the obscene wages that the Brazilian star receives served as a deterrence to all major clubs in Europe, even if the French team was more than willing to offer a discount on the transfer that had costed them 220 million euros in 2017.
At first, I did not fully believe the rumours, as they were published by a newspaper that is famously pro-Real Madrid, the team best positioned to hire the French striker, should he leave Paris. However, other outlets in France, Italy, Brazil and England began reporting the same thing. Apparently Mbappé was not fully satisfied with how the club is being run, and how the club is being managed. He had allegedly been promised that PSG would a) get rid of Neymar, b) have their manage play in 4-4-2 formation which he favours, c) strengthen their squad significantly.
None of those things happened. Neymar is still a part of the squad. The Brazilian Peter Pan is yet again having a crisis with a team-mate on who should have penalty responsibilities. This time, however, it was Mbappé that demanded being the number one taker. (Somewhere while drinking Yerba mate, Cavani is grinning). The relationship between both is said to be cold and distant at the moment. Neymar allegedly feels bitter about Mbappé wanting to get rid of him (even though Neymar himself wanted to leave the club at a point). Neymar was once the foundation of a PSG project that both wishes to win the Champions League, solidify PSG as a force to be reckoned and act as a conduit for Qatari relations in Europe. Now it is Mbappé that is taking the mantle.
The suggestion that PSG were to play in a 4-4-2 is one that was predicated on them hiring a top striker to play alongside Mbappé. Lewadowski was said to have been targeted, but he chose to go to Barça instead. Furthermore, PSG have two of the most talented offensive players on the planet - Messi and Neymar - and they are quite comfortable playing in a front-three. That players have a preferred style of play is a common-place; better and more established players are able to influence their coaches to adapt to a game style that feels comfortable. However, there is a hint of Mbappé not only wanting the team to play in a certain way, but rather having been promised that he would have the power to dictate how the coach should line-up and which players would fit his preferred style. By becoming the best-paid player in the World, Mbappé was promised something akin to an assistant coach position.
PSG drama stands in a stark comparison to what takes place at Manchester City right now. Both the English team and the French ones are financially backed by Middle Eastern autocratic regimes (City by the UAE and PSG by Qatar), and both are a part of the geopolitical strategy of those nations. Neither of them have ever had a role as being amongst the best teams in the world, until they were bought. PSG is a fairly young club - from 1970 - and City had become accustomed, through their history to bouncing back and forth between the 1st and 2nd tier, and to playing second fiddle to their biggest rivals, Manchester United. Neither of them were seen as amongst the elite of European football, until they were bought. The foreign investment has seen them also become perennial favorites to win the Champions League, by the sheer amount of talent at their disposal, and the financial power to keep on adding more.
However, it feels like City have been much closer to that goal than PSG. Their latest purchase, the acrobatic and deadly Erling Haaland looks like the last piece of the puzzle for a Guardiola team that have looked to be more unlucky than incapable during their last Champions League runs. City won the league last season in an almost perfect campaign, in which their main opposition was stretched thin by competing on all four available fronts.
It was a season that saw them purchase Jack Grealish from West Ham for 100 million pounds. Pundits were left to wonder on whether this was truly necessary, due to the depth of the Citizens squad and the characteristics of the mercurial midfielder. Don’t get me wrong, dear reader. Jack Grealish is an undeniably good player. But is he 100 million pounds good? I believe he is not. I also know that it simply makes no difference, as City’s budget is able to afford a squad rotation player for 100 million pounds player. Furthermore, he was overpriced due to him being English, and also due to Aston Villa being fully aware of how much money Guardiola had available. City and Guardiola did not need him that much. They could, however, afford him without any problems. So they bought him. Grealish, a player whose career would have, in all likelihood, been one without silverware, had he remained at Villa, is certainly thankful that he has already won the Premier League. That and loads of money, of course.
This season saw them buying Haaland from Borussia Dortmund. Alongside Mbappé, the Scandinavian is seen as one of those players capable of wearing the crown that Messi and Ronaldo have worn until recently. However, unlike Mbappé, heavy is not the head of Erling Haaland. His first official match - the Community Shield final against Liverpool - was a terrible game for the Norwegian. And that is, basically, the only bad match he has played for City ever since. Haaland has played 9 games in the Premier League. He has an astounding 15 goals and 3 assists to his name. He has had 2.0 (!!!) average on a direct goal involvement in the league. He is on the track to break all the records in the Premier League. Yet, he does not call the shots at City. At least, not like Mbappé does.
The mere suggestion that a player could have a say in how Guardiola should line up his players feels like anathema. They have dominated the Premier League in the last seasons, and are on track to repeating the same feat. As much as Guardiola has played himself in the Champions League by overthinking, it feels like a matter of time until he wins it. It felt like they were missing a piece of the puzzle, every time they crashed and burned. Now they have found him, in the shape of a 194 cm tall force of nature that looks like it was built for the sole reason of scoring goals.
As Mbappé have created yet another crisis in Paris, Haaland has arrived to score goals, and he is doing just that. He was, perhaps, promised by Guardiola that his team mates would do their best to assist him. That was all he could ever need, and ask for. Haaland is not preoccupied with being the main star, nor with petty rivalries with his team mates; unlike Macron, the Prime Minister of Norway has better things to do than call him about his professional career. Perhaps, it is because Manchester is greyer and duller than Paris with all its glitz and glamour; or perhaps Haaland understands that football is, after all, a collective sport, even if he is the most impactful player in the world nowadays.
In the end, of all the clubs owned by billionaires, none of them is more professionally run than Manchester City. And of all the billionaire clubs, none is more fraught with drama and bickering than PSG. Mbappé should have known better what he was getting himself into, after signing up his contract extension. But then again, Mbappé knows he will always have Paris.