Kylian Mbappe is back.
Not that he had gone anywhere, really. But there had been questions. Coming into Real Madrid's match against Real Valladolid, Mbappe had scored 12 goals in 18 LaLiga games, 18 in 30 across all competitions. These are not bad numbers, but they aren't Real Madrid superstar forward numbers (mostly thanks to one Mr. Cristiano Ronaldo) and this being Madrid, the questions were relentless. Can he really do it, they asked off the World Cup winner... can he handle the pressure of being Madrid's focal point, can he work with the other superstar attackers in the team?
On the field he'd looked a bit hesitant, caught offside multiple times (most notably in his first Clasico), missed a couple of crunch penalties, and even turned down the chance to take one. Even Mbappe, usually so self-confident, had felt the doubts creep in. Ahead of the Valladolid game, he'd said he felt he was at "rock bottom" after the second of those penalty misses (against Athletic in December). "I believe it was a mentality issue and that was a point I realised that I had to work harder. I was thinking too much about how to do things. Whether to go into space, whether to go to Vini's [Vinicius Jr's] area of the pitch, to Rodrygo's area. When you overthink, you don't focus on your game. I knew I had to do more, that was the time to change the situation."
Change the situation he has. Last week he scored a brace against Las Palmas, and said, "I've adapted to the team now, and I can play as I want." This past Saturday night, he played as he wanted and put Valladolid to the sword.
�� Kylian Mbappé Lottin pic.twitter.com/dPcwE1EIH0
- Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadrid) January 25, 2025
It started in the thirtieth minute. Cushioning a hard ping from Fede Valverde to Jude Bellingham, he set off, knowing the return would arrive. Bellingham's immediate 1-2 return deflected off an unwitting Javi Sanchez's leg, but arrive it did at the feet of Mbappe, and he finished with a trademark close-ranger curler into the far post. It was a goal created by Mbappe taking a game from jogging pace to warp speed by dint of his movement. And there was more to come.
Fifty-seven minutes in, Madrid raced forward on the counter, Mbappe down the middle, Rodrygo down the left and Bellingham the right. With Rodrygo carrying the ball, Mbappe instantly realised he'd move to cut in and arced his sprint around the Brazilian, on the outside. It sounds simple when we read it, but watch it happen and even in slow mo, the man is a blur. What happened next was even more rapid. Collecting the ball without breaking stride, he took a touch and opened his body up simultaneously, before calmly passing it into the bottom corner. Fast, flowing, decisive... this was Kylian Mbappe doing Kylian Mbappe things.
In the last minute of regulation time, when Bellingham was hacked down in the box, there were no doubts who would take the pen. No rotation, no deference. Superstar Galactico forwards don't do any of that -- and Mbappe finished with a calm Ronaldo would have been proud of to complete his first hattrick in Madrid colours.
After the game, he said all the right things too. "I'm happy with the hat trick, but I'm more happy with the win," he told Real Madrid TV, before sounding a warning to every defence in the land: "My adaptation is over for sure. I feel good, with my movements, and my teammates, you can see it on the pitch."
And for that, Kylian Mbappe takes our Moment of the Weekend.