Kylian Mbappé will join Real Madrid, who are off to another UEFA Champions League final this summer, once his contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires in late June. Nonetheless, does joining the Spanish giants enhance the 25-year-old’s legacy?
Mbappé probably won’t be the alpha star with the Spanish giants, which already boast a team with Vinicius Jr. and Jude Bellingham. The 2018 FIFA World Cup winner was the standalone star at PSG this season and failed to lift the Parisians past Borussia Dortmund.
Meanwhile, Vinicius scored a brace in the first leg to help Real Madrid take a 2-2 aggregate score back home. As a result, Mbappé will be joining a star-studded Real Madrid team. One FOX Soccer analyst believes that winning any Champions League trophy will give off a Kevin Durant winning championships with the Golden State Warriors feel.
“The Champions League is going to be his big void to fill, his cross to bear and this was his last crack at it with PSG,” David Mosse said on Alexi Lalas’ State of the Union Podcast. “He’s going to leave this summer after seven seasons there [and] go to Real Madrid and probably win a couple of Champions League titles there, which will give it this sort of Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors-ish feel.
“Nevertheless, I don’t begrudge him going to Real Madrid at this point in his career. And whatever he wins there, I think he’ll have deserved it.”
For those who don’t follow the NBA, Durant was the No. 1 guy with the Oklahoma City Thunder and had Russell Westbrook as his running mate. After failing to win an NBA title with the Thunder, Durant left in 2016, but the forward didn’t go anywhere to be the top guy; he went to the Warriors.
Golden State had already won an NBA title in 2015, with Steph Curry as the team’s No. 1 player. The team was also coming off a record-setting 73-win season during the 2015-16 season, so many saw this as the easy route to winning a championship, which the team did.
With Durant, the Warriors won a title in 2017 and 2018, and if injuries hadn’t plagued the team, they could’ve won in 2019 for a three-peat. Although the former Thunder star won back-to-back Finals MVP, Golden State was never seen as his team considering Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were also higher up in the pecking order.
It will be interesting to see if Real Madrid is viewed as Mbappé’s team or if he’s a player who’s only along for the ride. At PSG, he was the focal point, but now, with the Spanish giants, he’ll share that spotlight as the squad turns into a juggernaut.
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