Mbappe takes on Haaland in UCL clash

Real Madrid desperately need superstar Kylian Mbappe at his magical best on Wednesday in a pivotal Champions League clash with Manchester City and unstoppable striker Erling Haaland.
After just two wins in seven matches, cracks have appeared in Xabi Alonso’s work at Madrid, with some Spanish media suggesting that a defeat to City could lead to an early exit.
So often this season Madrid have fallen behind but have been saved by the lethal brilliance of Mbappe, scoring 25 goals in 21 games to top the scoring charts in both Spain and the Champions League.
Pep Guardiola’s City are led by Norway international Haaland, who has 20 goals in 20 games in all competitions and, along with Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane, is Bape’s only rival as the breakout star of the current season.
The pair have also been drawn against each other at next summer’s World Cup in the United States, with Mbappe’s France facing Haaland’s Norway on June 26 in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
The first chapter of this battle will be played at the Bernabeu, where former Barcelona boss Guardiola would relish the opportunity to add to Madrid’s misery.
This season City have been built around Haaland, playing to the striker’s strengths and aiming for most of their moves to end with the ball at his feet in front of goal.
The structure Alonso tried to give Madrid has collapsed amid a power struggle with the players, although Mbappe’s quality has made him their key figure.
“The team is a flat, uninspired team centered around Mbappe, whose goals just hide the crisis,” wrote Spanish newspaper AS on Sunday after the 2-0 home defeat by Celta Vigo.
“If he takes a day off, there is no alternative.”
Mbappe has been a constant for Madrid this season, flourishing when the team was going well during a run of 13 wins in 14 matches, but also in recent weeks amidst their struggles.
After a slow start to life in Spain following his move from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2024, Mbappe found his best gear in the second half of last season.
In 2025 he scored 55 goals for his club, four short of the 2013 record of 59 set by Cristiano Ronaldo, his childhood idol and Real Madrid’s all-time leading scorer.

The split of Madrid
Mbappe has emerged as a unifying force in Madrid, even as the team crumbles around him.
Alonso arrived aiming to establish himself as a manager cast in a different mold than Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane before him, considered excellent managers but with less of a tactical and technical focus.
With Mbappe as his only intact outfielder, Alonso began the season by alternating Vinicius Junior with Rodrygo Goes and Dani Carvajal with Trent Alexander-Arnold, constantly shuffling his pack.
Jude Bellingham is sidelined after shoulder surgery and Arda Guler is thriving in midfield.
The team got results, but resentment among some star players grew, coming to a head with Vinicius’ fury following the substitution in October’s Clasico, which Madrid won.
Bellingham’s return from injury further forced Alonso’s selection, along with Fede Valverde’s reluctance to play out of position at right-back.
A string of away games, partly because the club hosted an NFL game at the Bernabeu, has contributed to their recent slump as signs of Alonso’s pressing ideas have diminished and big-name players start every game.
After the 1-1 draw at Girona at the end of November, Bape called on the team to “show who we are” and “change this dynamic”.
“It’s not just the goals for Kylian… he does other extremely fundamental things like leadership, influence, helping his teammates and that’s so important every day,” Alonso said, appreciating calls for unity from Mbappe.
Madrid thrashed Athletic Bilbao 3-0 last week in a result that was an outlier in their recent form, with AS claiming the players were particularly motivated by the promise of two days off for a win.
Those days, before the Celta defeat, may have contributed to the loss — which could have ended in a draw had Mbappe’s ball gone under the crossbar rather than just over it, with the Galicians leading by a single goal.
It was a matter of millimetres, but it would again be a case of Mbappe putting paper over the deep cracks. And yet against the might of City and Haaland, in the eye of the storm, for Alonso even that would do.