In the realm of Flemish primitives, Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG) completed, on Tuesday 23 October, a spectacular triptych, Kylian Mbappé completing the masterpiece in half an hour of striking realism. The Jan-Breydel stadium in Bruges, having seen its children torn 5-0, greeted the masters as we bow to a Van Eyck Madonna. Kylian Mbappé left with the ball under his arm, reward of a hat-trick, and Angel Di Maria with his fine brushes: Tuesday, the Argentine assistant gave three assists. Since the beginning of the season, the workshop runs thanks to him.
PSG, with three wins in as many games in the Champions League, is almost qualified, although the victory of Real Madrid in Galatasaray (0-1) maintains a semblance of suspense. He did not concede a single goal during this first leg and his opponents have only one shot (zero for Bruges on Tuesday). Paris scored nine times when, of his three presumed attackers, only one played, thirty minutes against Galatasaray and forty minutes in Bruges: Kylian Mbappé.
In thirty minutes, the latter transformed what was only a crust, a "Shit match", sliced Paris coach Thomas Tuchel. Paris, after the opening of the early score by Mauro Icardi – what opening of Thiago Silva! – had preferred to stop playing. The ball was abandoned to the volunteers and technical Bruges, but too limited physically to really worry the central Parisian defense, led like a Roman turtle by his Brazilian captain.
"To show that it was difficult to do without me"
The few balls that came into the feet of Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting, titularized instead of Mbappé, recalled how the presence of the German in this workforce becomes a mystery as soon as he enters the field. The director, this tease, filmed in the first period a Kylian Mbappé pissed off. Visibly dissatisfied with being on the sidelines again as he resumes competition after a relapse of a thigh injury. Earlier, we had seen the French join the stadium, at the exit of the bus, a very slow pace, earphones screwed to the ears. They had.
"It's true that I wanted to starthe said at the microphone of RMC Sport. I thought I was going to start, but now, the coach has chosen and we have to accept it. And I wanted to go home and show that it was difficult to do without me. " Kylian Mbappé remains this player who says what he thinks of him – good – and feels the need to remember its usefulness, even if it would be necessary to plunge the head in the Bruges canals not to see it. A player who, in May, demanded more "Responsibilities" Paris will never be content to start a match on the bench, be it Champions League or League Cup. His predecessor Zlatan Ibrahimovic, also obsessed with his statistics, only started a match on the bench under duress – it was rare.
But Thomas Tuchel is still the matchmaker. The German preferred that Mbappé enters the second half in a match " more open ", with the certainty of being able to play forty minutes thoroughly, rather than seeing him run with the handbrake "To play as long as possible". "You do not have to think about that to play more freelyexplains the German. It was not easy to tell him but he is very intelligent and he knows it was the best thing for him. "
Never seen for eleven years
The change of pace was spectacular, as if his coming into play had remobilized the teammates of Thiago Silva. The balloons came back faster in the feet of Paris and Mbappé solicited them all, the paw scratching the ground like a greyhound in his stall.
Calls, counter-calls, accelerations, rebounds in one touch … Mbappé then offered a demonstration of the game of the center-forward, a position that was never really his until the beginning of 2019. Of a head, he marked his first goal, nine minutes after his come-in (61e). From the right, the second, served by Angel Di Maria (79e). From the left, the third (83e), still thanks to the Argentinian.
It was necessary to go back eleven years to find trace of a substitute scoring a hat-trick after coming into play in the Champions League. The Spaniard Joseba Llorente, for Villarreal, had not found that day time to also offer a decisive pass, like Mbappé serving Icardi on the third goal in Paris (63).e).
At a young age, Mbappé does not need a heating tower. The few acceleration along the touch, chasuble on the back, before entering the game, suffice him. Entering half an hour before the end of the match in Bordeaux, a month ago, he had needed ten minutes to pitch his opponent on an acceleration and offer the only goal of the match to Neymar. Sunday in Nice, he scored five minutes after his start and gave Icardi a goal three minutes later.
A year ago, the striker just world champion had tested his ability to change the course of a meeting after being left on the bench by Thomas Tuchel, to punish a delay in the "chat" of before match. Mbappé had entered the second half against Olympique de Marseille while PSG was struggling at Stade Vélodrome. He opened the scoring three minutes later.
And guess who comes Sunday at the Parc des Princes?
