- 16 hours ago
'Deplorable' Mbappe has 'gone off the rails' after Euro 2024 horror show
Suraj Radia
- 12 Jul 2024 17:00 BST
- 3 min read
Kylian Mbappe has come under fire after his poor performance at EURO 2024, with French media describing him as ‘deplorable’ and claiming he has ‘gone off the rails’.
The French captain failed to score in open play during his country’s five games in Germany as France were knocked out by Spain in the semi-final, with Didier Deschamp’s side never truly hitting their stride throughout he tournament.
Mbappe has seemingly endured the brunt of the criticism, with RMC Sport reporter Daniel Riolo stating that the player who won France the World Cup in 2018 ‘no longer exists’.
READ MORE: Euro 2024 top scorers
“To this day, the Kylian Mbappé that I knew no longer exists, for me it is a memory,” Riolo said. “Mbappé completely went off the rails, he had a deplorable lifestyle, he no longer focused on football, he erased invisible training.”
STATS
Kylian Mbappé
F (CL)
Kylian Mbappé
F (CL)
PSG
Riolo also claimed that Mbappe’s move to Real Madrid this summer may not be enough to ‘save him’, warning that the 25-year-old could follow the path of previous players who stopped ‘training properly’ over time.
"He has the chance to go to Real and it is perhaps the right path that will save him,” Riolo said. “But the other path is that of Neymar and [Marco] Verratti, that is to say that you no longer train properly, you no longer have your explosiveness, you are no longer worth much."
Mbappe’s ‘abominable war with PSG’ to blame for downfall
Riolo blamed Mbappe’s fall-out with Paris Saint-Germain last summer as the turning point for when he allowed his standards to slip, having failed to engineer an exit with the French side in a public war of words.
"There was 2017-2023 and after that, there was the war with PSG, it was a psychological, mental massacre. His image has completely gone wrong,” Riolo said.
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"Yes, there were things on the level of moral harassment, yes there was an abominable war between the two clans (Mbappé and PSG). Both did everything, between promises and denials, to ruin the year of one and the other.
“There was only the athlete to save him from everything that was going on, this battery of communication, this film that Netflix is making around him."
"Today, he is at a crossroads. I am unable to say if he can get back on the right track, I don't know. It will be up to him to decide.”
