Kylian Mbappé rolled a defender in Rome, drove a long-range shot past Pierluigi Gollini, and reached another Champions League milestone. The 25th-minute equaliser in Real Madrid’s 4-3 win at AS Roma on Wednesday was the Frenchman’s 100th Champions League appearance, a milestone no player had reached as young.
At 27 years and 298 days, he passed Lionel Messi’s mark set in September 2015, when the Argentine reached the same milestone at 28 years and 84 days.
The record on 14 October followed the biggest one of the summer. In the World Cup bronze medal match in Miami on 18 July, Mbappé scored twice as France lost 6-4 to England, and his 66th-minute goal took him to 22 across his World Cup career, one past Messi and six past Germany’s Miroslav Klose. He finished the tournament with 10 goals and the Golden Boot. Spain won the trophy. France finished fourth.
Booed at home in May
The strangeness is that the records keep arriving and the crowd keeps not warming. Five months before Rome, on 15 May, Mbappé walked out at the Santiago Bernabéu to a wall of jeers inside his own stadium.
Read also: Red Bull’s £76m goodbye to Horner laid bare in Companies House filings
He had come off the bench in the 69th minute of a 2-0 win over Real Oviedo, replacing Gonzalo García. Vinícius Júnior and Aurélien Tchouaméni were booed too, but the loudest went to Mbappé. Banners around the ground demanded president Florentino Pérez’s resignation. Madrid had just conceded La Liga to Barcelona.
After the final whistle, Mbappé pointed at the coach.
“I didn’t play because the coach [Arbeloa] told me I’m the fourth-choice forward in the squad behind [Franco] Mastantuono, Vinícius [Júnior] and Gonzalo,” he told reporters.
Álvaro Arbeloa, interim coach after Xabi Alonso’s exit earlier in the season, flatly denied the exchange.
Read also: Araujo eyes Camp Nou return as Liverpool back away from £47m clause
“I wish I had four forwards. I don’t have four forwards, and I certainly didn’t say anything like that to Mbappé.”
Arbeloa’s spell ended in June. José Mourinho took over for the 2026-27 season.
25 goals and the defensive problem
A Wall Street Journal analysis published in June, built around the question of why one of the game’s biggest earners has become one of its most polarising, laid out a case not about talent but about team shape. Mbappé finished the 2025-26 La Liga season on 25 goals, nine clear of Vinícius Júnior and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal, yet ranked in the bottom 10 per cent for defensive contribution among La Liga forwards who played at least 19 matches.
The position row has been louder than the goals. A mid-June Odoxa poll cited in the same analysis found 61 per cent of French respondents did not want Mbappé used as a No. 9 for France. Didier Deschamps had kept him there anyway.
Read also: Verstappen clips an Audi on his GT World Challenge opener and faces the stewards
An earlier Odoxa survey, in September 2024 after his move from Paris Saint-Germain to Real Madrid, put approval of Mbappé in France at 54 per cent, with his score on “humility” alone down 31 points on 2019.
Deschamps’s defence, in the WSJ piece, was shorter.
“Kylian is Kylian. The younger generation, and the less young, love him all over the world.”
Seven goals in eight games under Mourinho
Under Mourinho, Mbappé has opened the season with seven goals in eight La Liga matches, and his Champions League record for Madrid now stands at 23 goals and two assists in 27 appearances.
Read also: Hamilton and Leclerc so desperate to beat each other that Ferrari are paying the price
Real Madrid play Getafe at the Bernabéu on Sunday.
Read also: Yann Sommer confirms separation from Alina the morning after San Siro
