By Opta Analyst | Created at 2025-04-03 08:40:05 | Updated at 2025-04-04 06:07:08
21 hours ago
Kylian Mbappé has already matched Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal tally in his first season at Real Madrid. He could make his 2024-25 a historic campaign.
In an era since Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi changed perceptions of the numbers a good goalscorer produces, Kylian Mbappé was always going to be judged to ridiculous standards at Real Madrid.
Add to that the extra scrutiny on players these days and raised expectations on any major new signing and the Frenchman inevitably faced an uphill battle to prove himself an immediate success.
Any realistic observer would recognise, however, that even a player as special as Mbappé might need a bit of time to settle. Even when going into a frontline alongside Jude Bellingham, Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo.
But that’s not how modern football fandom works, is it?
So, when Mbappé failed to score in his first three La Liga appearances, the vultures (who chose to forget his debut goal against Atalanta in the UEFA Super Cup) started circling.
When Mbappé then hit six goals in his next five games, the response was that three of those goals were penalties. The Frenchman then scored just once in his next seven, a run that included a 4-0 Clásico defeat to Barcelona followed by a 3-1 home loss to AC Milan in the Champions League.
When he then missed a penalty in an underwhelming performance in front of a huge global audience in a 2-0 defeat at Liverpool, the view that this move wasn’t going to work out started gathering real momentum. The word “flop” started trending on X in 17 different languages.
That obviously didn’t actually happen, but such an eventuality also wouldn’t have been completely beyond the realms of possibility. Opposition fans are always – not just in the case of Mbappé – waiting for their moment to pounce.
There’s no denying that early on in his time at Madrid, Mbappé wasn’t at his best. He struggled to adapt to his new team, and his talented fellow Madrid forwards weren’t finding it entirely easy to fit him in.
He had joined a team who had lost only once en route to league and Champions League glory last term, but it turned out it wasn’t quite as simple (who’d have guessed?) as adding a brilliant player to a brilliant team and everything clicking straight away.
Mbappé’s arrival meant Madrid had to adjust. Bellingham could no longer play through the middle of the pitch as the furthest player forward, a position from which he’d scored 23 goals in all competitions last season.
Meanwhile, Vinícius had to get used to another player taking up similar positions to him, with Mbappé having established himself as one of the best players in the world when free to drift from the centre-forward position out to the left flank. There seemed little sense in telling one of the best players in the world and one of the most noteworthy signings in Madrid’s history not to do the things that make him so good.
After a slow start, however, Mbappé’s output has improved markedly. Things have clicked in a 4-4-2 formation in which more is asked defensively of Vinícius and Rodrygo than maybe either of them would like or are used to, while Bellingham has to take up deeper positions. The England international has scored 13 goals this season, so would need another 10 in the remaining two months to match last season’s tally.
However, as a four, they are producing huge numbers, and there appears to be no problem with Mbappé’s suitability to playing alongside the other three.
He has gathered a great deal of momentum and the goals have flowed increasingly freely. Following the Liverpool game in late November, he scored five goals (no penalties) in his next six games, and shortly afterwards, his goalscoring really took off. Since scoring in the Spanish Super Cup defeat to Barcelona in January, Mbappé has 19 goals in his last 18 Madrid appearances.
He now has 33 goals in all competitions this season, which is some return for a player whose move apparently wasn’t working out a few months ago. It is a total, in fact, that a certain Madrid legend managed in his first season at the club.
Back in 2009-10, Cristiano Ronaldo racked up 33 goals in his debut season at the Santiago Bernabéu. Ronaldo, of course, would go on to become Madrid’s all-time leading goalscorer with 450 goals for the club. It’s a record that may never be broken.
However, after Mbappé drew level with Ronaldo thanks to his brace against Leganés last weekend, manager Carlo Ancelotti suggested there’s reason to believe the Frenchman can emulate Ronaldo’s achievements.
“What I can hope for is that Mbappé can achieve what Cristiano Ronaldo achieved at Real Madrid,” he said. “I think he has the possibility to do it. If he does that, he’ll be a legend at Real Madrid like Cristiano Ronaldo is.”
Ronaldo was one year younger (24) than Mbappé (25) when he joined Madrid from Manchester United, and he scored at an utterly ridiculous rate over his nine seasons at the club. Following that relatively goal-shy first campaign, Ronaldo hit 50+ goals in his next six campaigns (and more than 60 twice), before hitting 42 and 44 in his final two years. He scored at better than a goal a game over his entire Madrid career.
Even speculating that Mbappé could emulate Ronaldo is a pretty far-fetched idea, but Mbappé’s start has actually been better than the Portugal legend – assuming he scores at least one more goal this season. (It is worth noting that Mbappé’s cause has been aided by the fact that he’s already played 10 more games in his debut season than Ronaldo did in his due to better availability and there being more matches these days.)
With 22 goals in La Liga games only, meanwhile, Mbappé needs another four (with nine games remaining) to match Ronaldo’s tally of 26 in his debut campaign. The legendary Alfredo Di Stéfano holds the record for the best debut season for Real Madrid with 27 league goals in 1953-54, so Mbappé has every chance of breaking that record, too.
The record for most La Liga goals for any team in a debut season is held by the other Ronaldo, who scored 34 times for Barcelona in 1996-97. Pruden Sánchez scored 33 for Atlético Madrid in 1940-41, and Romário scored 30 for Barça in 1993-94; they are the only other players to break the 30-goal mark for La Liga goals in a debut season.
That milestone is a decent way off for Mbappé, but eight goals in his remaining nine games isn’t completely out of the question, particularly given how quickly he is now scoring goals.
He scored his first 14 in 27 games from 18.9 expected goals (xG), but his last 19, scored in 18 games, have come from just 12.6 xG. It’s clear to see that Madrid’s stacked front line has clicked, and the numbers show Mbappé is finally playing with a level of confidence we’d expect of him.
Following a dramatic 4-4 draw with Real Sociedad on Tuesday night that saw Ancelotti’s side through to the Copa del Rey final on aggregate after extra-time, there is still a chance Madrid could go one better than last term and win the treble this season.
However, with a three-point deficit to Barcelona to overturn in La Liga and three rounds to navigate in the Champions League, they have plenty of work to do before they can start thinking about winning all three competitions. They also had their ongoing defensive frailties – which were inevitable when they decided to add Mbappé to the team at the expense of a central midfielder – laid bare by their midweek cup opponents. There is good reason for anyone they face to believe they can hurt them.
But even so, as things stand, the possibility of a treble remains. Ronaldo won nothing in his first season at the club, so there’s a decent chance Mbappé could make his debut campaign a bigger success.
Beyond this year, whether he can do what Ronaldo did is another matter entirely, but on this season’s evidence, any fan of an opposing team hoping Mbappé will turn out to be a big money flop is likely to end up pretty disappointed.
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