Kylian Mbappe shows why he is a Real leader

calcutta: deuce things happened for existent capital of spain in the number one three minutes. The first set the tone for the 2-1 home win against Marseille. Real Madrid will hope they can live down the consequences of the second.

The clock showed 1:54 when Kylian Mbappe almost scored with a scissors-kick. So audacious was the attempt that once off the floor, Mbappe was seen smiling. Less than a minute later, Trent Alexander-Arnold was holding his left hamstring. Enter Dani Carvajal whose exit in the 72nd minute following a straight red card could spoil subsequent European nights.

About Mbappe first. He had 10 shots on the night, five on target. Mbappe’s brace from the penalty spot took his Real Madrid goal tally to 50 in 64 matches. He has 17 goals in Real’s last 15 games. Tuesday’s double meant his Champions League tally moved to 57 goals in 88 matches spread over three clubs. It is the seventh-highest and Mbappe is only 26.

Mbappe is continuing from where he left off last term when he won the European Golden Shoe for 31 league goals which was best among the world’s top five leagues. In his first season at Real, Mbappe had 44 goals in all competitions. The tally included eight goals in his last five La Liga matches, three of them coming against Barcelona in a 3-4 defeat. “I knew I had to do more,” he had said in January. By the end of the season, it was evident he had.

But phenomenal as they are, numbers don’t quite tell the Mbappe story. Not of the night, nor of his other-worldly career that already has a World Cup and two World Cup finals with a hattrick in one of them. As has been evident from the start of this domestic season, Mbappe is at the front and centre of all things on the pitch. In Real’s Galacticos 2.0 project, which also includes Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham, Mbappe is not the captain but the leader on way to being a legend.

“Kylian is fundamental, he’s in great shape both his football and his personality,” Real’s head coach Xabi Alonso had said before the match away to Real Sociedad. A match Mbappe finished with a goal and an assist for Arda Guler after weaving into the penalty box. “The assist was more important as it was a key moment in the game,” he told DAZN clearly warming up to the idea of being a leader.

Like he has been in La Liga this season, Real’s new No.10 started as centre-forward on Tuesday. The first of the several times Marseille erred while trying to draw Real out, Mbappe got the ball from Rodrygo, swivelled so fast that Benjamin Pavard missed him and shot powerfully producing a superb reflex save from Gerónimo Rulli. Soon after, Mbappe had dropped into his half trying to dribble up the Santiago Bernabeu park. New coach Xabi Alonso has called for increased intensity from Real’s attacking players and, somewhat surprisingly, in Mbappe, he has found an ally.

Tim Weah’s goal, after Mason Greenwood dispossessed Guler, in the 22nd minute was a sucker-punch. But Mbappe restored parity in six minutes after Geoffrey Kondogbia’s clumsy challenge on Rodrygo fetched a penalty. Mbappe ended the first half by forcing another save from Rulli and finding the prodigious teen Franco Mastantuono with a pass that again called the Marseille goalie into action.

The second half began with Mbappe holding up his hand to Mastantuono for a pass that was too long and hitting the horizontal following a deflection off Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. There was a shirt tug on Leonardo Balerdi and a side-volley that went nowhere before the second penalty for Facundo Medina’s hand landing on the ball. Rulli got a hand but the shot was too powerful. Mbappe’s final contribution o was finding Brahim Diaz whose shot was blocked by Rulli.

And now about the red card. Carvajal’s expulsion and injuries to Antonio Ruediger and Alexander-Arnold’s injury could lead to a problem of personnel in defence like last time. “It was difficult to put together a solid team and support the attacking quality we had,” former coach Carlo Ancelotti had told L’Equipe about last season.

Including the Club World Cup quarter-final, this was the third match Real won when down to 10 in 2025-26. But for sure, it will test Real’s strength in depth. Which was the key takeaway from Arsenal 2-0 win at Athletic Bilbao. Not only did substitutes Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard score, the latter also had an assist, the quality they have on the bench seems like £300m was well spent in the summer.

Manager Mikel Arteta has already spoken of the possibility of substitutes making a bigger impact than starters. On Tuesday his options included new buys Piero Hincapié and Christian Nørgaard and those like William Saliba, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri and Max Dowman. All of them, Arteta knows, are capable of Champions League football. It is an improvement on the side that lost in the semi-final last season.

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