The silence on Dembélé’s phone has become the story of France’s international window. According to L’Équipe’s reporting, relayed by Get Football News France, Mbappé sent a WhatsApp message to his Paris Saint-Germain and France team-mate hoping to put their fallout to bed. Dembélé did not reply. The captain is reportedly struggling to understand why.
Dembélé pulled out of the November international break, so the two were not forced into the same room at Clairefontaine. But the quarrel has not gone away, and L’Équipe writes that behind closed doors Dembélé has taken every opportunity to have a dig at Mbappé.
A fractured inner circle
The tension sits on top of a camp that was already thin on allies for Mbappé. Marcus Thuram was ruled out on Tuesday with a right hamstring problem picked up in Inter’s 2-0 win over Como, with Bournemouth teenager Éli Junior Kroupi called up in his place. The French Football Federation said Thuram’s “persistent discomfort prevented him from taking part in training this Monday, and he remained in treatment.”
Thuram is one of the names L’Équipe places at the heart of Mbappé’s small group in the France squad, along with Dembélé, Michael Olise and Bradley Barcola. With Dembélé gone and Thuram injured, Mbappé looks “more isolated than before” at a camp where the Inter forward usually plays the role of bridge-builder.
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The Ballon d’Or in the background
The friction is not only personal. The 2026 Ballon d’Or at the London Palladium on 26 October was won by Harry Kane with 1,055 points, ahead of Mbappé on 1,027, a gap of just 28 points and 17 first-place votes. Dembélé, the favoured PSG candidate heading into the vote, finished further back.
L’Équipe reports that the ceremony has poisoned relations between Real Madrid and PSG players in the France squad, and that some team-mates have read Mbappé’s attempts to engage more widely with the group and staff as opportunistic rather than warm.
Zidane’s first awkward test
All of this lands on Zinedine Zidane, who replaced Didier Deschamps over the summer and is still assembling his group. His captain is a Real Madrid player chasing the Ballon d’Or; his most electric forward from the Paris side is not even in camp.
France play Italy in Milan on Thursday, 12 November, before hosting Turkey in Paris on Saturday, 15 November, in the Nations League. Dembélé is not expected back before Zidane’s next squad in the new year.
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