Mbappe, Vinicius Jr and Bellingham: Real Madrid’s third wave of ‘galacticos’ are just getting started

All it took was five seconds.

There were seven touches of the football, two passes and three (superstar) players involved. The result? A goal that had Real Madrid fans on their feet.

Jude Bellingham took a pass in his stride and quickly threaded it through to Vinicius Junior, who was bursting into the Pachuca penalty area. He took one touch then sold the Mexican side’s goalkeeper with a Brazilian Ronaldo-esque stepover, dribbled past him and cut the ball back for Kylian Mbappe to steer it home. With that, Madrid were ahead and in control in the recent Intercontinental Cup final (the new name for the old, smaller, still-annual version of the Club World Cup).

It was the kind of move that the Spanish club’s president Florentino Perez had imagined when planning his latest ‘galacticos’ project. He was the main driving force behind Madrid signing Mbappe in the summer, despite other important voices at the club either being hesitant for economic reasons given the scale of the investment involved, or not wanting to risk disrupting the excellent atmosphere in manager Carlo Ancelotti’s dressing room.

On the strictly sporting side, there was consensus. After all, this was a player who scored 175 goals in 205 league appearances for Paris Saint-Germain, arriving as a free agent with his contract having expired.

However, that brilliant passage of play on December 18 at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar — coincidentally the scene of Mbappe’s hat-trick for France against Argentina in a losing effort in the World Cup final exactly two years earlier — has been a rarity in the first half of his debut season in Madrid. One of the coaching staff explained that goal against Pachuca was not choreographed, or a move they had practised in training, but down to the sheer quality of the players involved.

Mbappe, Rodrygo, Vinicius Junior and Bellingham celebrate winning the Intercontinental Cup (Antonio Villalba/Real Madrid via Getty Images)

In the reporting of this piece, which will explore the first few months of the ‘MVB’ (Mbappe-Vinicius Jr-Bellingham) combination, The Athletic spoke to multiple people close to the first team and coaching staff at Madrid, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships.

Getting the Mbappe deal done and creating ‘MVB’

Madrid decided at the turn of the year to have one final go for Mbappe, who they had been trying to sign for more than six years by that point. It was largely driven by the determination of Perez, who was in direct contact with Mbappe, which is uncharacteristic of the club president.

As mentioned, some were concerned about the deal on financial and human grounds. They feared a massive investment in Mbappe could cause jealousy among the team’s other stars, and they also feared the noise that had surrounded the player, at PSG and in France, could upset the harmony of the dressing room.

Mbappe was given a contract worth around €15million, net (after deductions such as tax), per season and a reported signing bonus of around €100m (£83m/$104m at current exchange rates). Madrid have it in mind to raise the salaries of Bellingham and Vinicius Jr to be on par with this, as Perez did in the club’s first ‘galacticos’ era two decades ago, with Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Raul. At the moment, Vinicius and Bellingham are reportedly on around €10m net per season, before bonuses.

Mbappe’s €100million signing bonus has to be understood in the context of his move — one that was without a transfer fee. Compare it to how Madrid paid a very similar sum, €103m, to buy England midfielder Bellingham from Dortmund a year earlier.

(Rico Brouwer/Soccrates/Getty Images)

The Madrid decision-makers also trusted that Mbappe’s personality would enhance the group, rather than cause friction. In that regard, he has delivered from day one, and is a smiling and friendly member of the first-team squad, despite his worldwide status.

In January last year, Ancelotti was told the club were optimistic about finally getting Mbappe, and from the February he had him in his plans for this season, which began in August.

Ancelotti was delighted at the prospect of working with Mbappe, seeing it as a challenge on both a managerial and football level — and there have certainly been ups and downs for Mbappe so far. The hugely experienced Italian devised a plan to harness the talents of his three stars — Vinicius Jr, Bellingham and Mbappe — a hybrid system that looked like a 4-3-3 in attack and a 4-4-2 in defence, with the idea of balance across the team at its core.

Both Ancelotti and the club’s board thought Mbappe could become even better in Madrid than he’d been in Paris, and that he had not yet reached his talent ceiling. There was belief Madrid needed a boost too. Yes, they went on to win La Liga and the Champions League, but they had been knocked out in the latter’s semi-finals the year before by treble-bound Manchester City, and were pushed all the way by the same opponents in an April quarter-final that went to penalties.

With Mbappe, you get more than a footballer — you also get the brand that comes with one of the most marketable athletes on the planet. This won’t have been overlooked by Madrid.

This felt like the start of a third chapter of the ‘galacticos’, after the one that began with Figo’s arrival in 2000 and then the second wave of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema, from 2009.

A rollercoaster start for Mbappe

There have been some bumps along the road in Madrid for Mbappe but the reaction within the club to his arrival and first few months has been positive. The player is getting used to being part of a new team, and the team are getting used to incorporating another outstanding attacking talent alongside Vinicius Jr.

For those reasons, it is understandable Mbappe has not hit top form yet, and even at 26 there are aspects of his game that can be improved. As was the case at PSG, his defensive work has been lacking at times, and, after scoring on his debut in the European Super Cup win against Atalanta in August, there was a worrying (if brief) goal drought at the start of the league season.

It was not until his fourth match in La Liga that he found the back of the net, twice against Real Betis on September 1, and that run without a goal had set off alarm bells — for Mbappe, at the very least. “For many people (it) is not much, but for me it’s a lot,” he admitted after that short barren stretch.

Mbappe has tried to give himself the best platform to succeed at his new club, in a new country. He is France captain but asked to be left out of Didier Deschamps’ squad for their September internationals against Italy and Belgium, feeling he needed a break after such a busy year for club and country, and the upheaval of a huge transfer, but was called up anyway.

He did want to join up for games against Israel and Belgium in October, but Deschamps chose not to include him and Mbappe spent time with friends and family in Sweden instead.

There have been plenty of headlines around Mbappe in recent months, from his lack of involvement with France, to an ongoing issue with PSG over wages and then, after that October international break, there were reports in Sweden linking him to an allegation of rape. Mbappe denied any involvement, describing the reports as “fake news” and the rape investigation was closed in mid-December.

Deschamps watches Mbappe during training at Euro 2024 (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

All of this contributed to reports in his homeland that Mbappe was suffering from mental health problems, but he rejected those suggestions in a December interview with France’s Canal Plus.

“I had moments when I was tired, but I wasn’t depressed,” he said. “There are people who are very depressed, we have to help them. At one point I felt exhausted, because I haven’t rested. I have had sporting disappointments. But the other thing is just talking for the sake of talking, which is free.”

One of the stumbling blocks for Madrid appeared to be that his favoured position in the starting line-up (wide on the left) was already occupied by one of the best players in the world — Vinicius Jr.

“Having Mbappe will never be a problem,” one member of the Madrid coaching staff said in the summer, and despite later acknowledging the debate over who plays where, the coaches remain sure that Mbappe for Madrid is a centre-forward, “the 9”. They underlined his qualities and said he needs time to adapt to the team, and vice versa.

However, in the 3-0 win away to Leganes at the end of November, Ancelotti switched Vinicius and Mbappe’s positions, and Mbappe stayed on the left while the Brazilian missed a couple of weeks through injury, only returning to the centre for the Champions League win against Atalanta in Bergamo.

As we can see from his heatmaps below, showing where on the pitch he’s touched the ball, that Leganes game stands in sharp contrast to more flexible positioning against Milan and Barcelona in previous weeks, while he has generally shared the left wing with Rodrygo since.

While Vinicius Jr was briefly unavailable because of a hamstring injury, the spotlight was even more firmly on Mbappe, and his performances were disappointing. He missed penalties in defeats to Liverpool and Athletic Club in late November and early December. “I hit rock-bottom in Bilbao,” Mbappe admitted of the latter game, after being named man of the match against Sevilla on December 22.

The club supported him in public and in private, and at no point did his attitude or training levels dip. Since the 3-0 win away to Girona on December 7, things have been looking up. He scored an excellent goal and looked unstoppable for 35 minutes against Atalanta in the Champions League three days later, before having to be withdrawn late in the first half because of injury.

Mbappe then missed the 3-3 draw against Rayo Vallecano the following weekend but returned to play an hour in the 3-0 defeat of Pachuca, then shone in the 4-2 win against Sevilla on Sunday, Madrid’s final league game before La Liga’s winter break. He smashed home the opening goal from a central position and later provided an assist for Brahim Diaz.

It hasn’t been plain sailing for Mbappe in the Spanish capital but he still reaches the winter break with 13 goals and three assists across all club competitions. He is Madrid’s top scorer in La Liga (10) and only two players in the competition have more goals than him — Barcelona pair Robert Lewandowski (16) and Raphinha (11).

“I am going to succeed here (Madrid),” he added in that Canal Plus interview earlier this month. “At the beginning, I was too hungry and it played a trick on me, because I was impatient. But I have passion and this competitive side. Sometimes, it played against me.”

The dependable brilliance of Vinicius Jr

Vinicius Junior is regarded as Real Madrid’s most decisive player this season — both inside and outside the club.

There was a lot of talk about how the Brazil forward would react to Mbappe’s arrival, but as the Frenchman confirmed at his initial presentation in the summer, Vinicius Jr in fact played a role in ‘convincing’ him to join Madrid, texting him often during the transfer process.

The two have a good personal relationship and Vinicius has shown interest in helping Mbappe adapt to life in Madrid, the 24-year-old’s home since 2018. On the pitch, he has shared penalty-taking duties with the newcomer and there have been moments in games where he has chosen to set up Mbappe for goals when he could easily have taken the shot on himself.

It was a strange start to the season for Vinicius Jr, who received criticism in the Spanish press after The Athletic revealed there was transfer interest in him from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are expected to try again in 2025, although Madrid do not want to sell and the player is 1) under contract until 2027 and 2) has made it clear in every public appearance that he wants to stay.

(Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

On the pitch, his form has been superb, and he reaches the winter break having scored 13 goals and provided seven assists in 20 games in all competitions.

In October he experienced one of the most difficult moments of his career when, after being favourite and himself expecting to win it, he finished runner-up to Manchester City and Spain midfielder Rodri in the voting for the Ballon d’Or, the prestigious award honouring the best footballer in the world over the previous year.

“Eu farei 10x se for preciso. Eles nao estao preparados,” he wrote on X — ‘I will do it x10 if necessary. They are not ready.’

Since that disappointment, he has scored six goals in six games for Madrid, and they have won all but one of those (the league draw with Rayo), including the Intercontinental Cup final. The latter is his 14th trophy in less than seven full seasons with Madrid.

He was also named the men’s player of the year at the FIFA Best awards.

The resurgence of Bellingham

Perhaps the best news for Real Madrid recently has been the spectacular return to form of Jude Bellingham.

The England midfielder has excelled and looks more like the player who hit the ground running so impressively after joining from Germany’s Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2023.

Things were less positive for him at the start of the season. He was struggling with a calf injury, didn’t score until November 9 and he felt he was bearing the brunt of criticism in England following their European Championship final defeat to Spain in July.

“I lost my smile a lot after the Euros when it came to playing for England, because I felt like I was a little bit mistreated in comparison to what I contributed,” he said before the Champions League match against Liverpool in late November. “I felt like some of it was a bit harsh on me. I felt I was a bit like the scapegoat. Maybe I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself.

“I haven’t lost my smile in the Madrid shirt. I am annoyed when we lose and I get frustrated, but it is never a case of not being happy. I’m the luckiest lad in the world. I get to play week in week out for the biggest club in the world and represent my country. I think it was more to do with how I was treated on the back of the Euros. The smile is back.”

Bellingham was more liberated then, because weeks earlier he’d got his first goal of the season, in the 4-0 win against Osasuna on November 9. It sparked a superb run in which he scored in six consecutive games, the best of his career.

(Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images)

“This year we have signed one of the best of this generation, who has scored an incredible amount of goals,” he also said about Mbappe while in Liverpool. “I’m aware that my role (in the team) is going to change and I’m ready for that. But I also want to take responsibility for the goal, because I feel I have that nose for goal.”

At Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex, they have never doubted Bellingham’s ability and recognised that his impact was being limited by the changes in the team after the summer retirement of fellow midfielder Toni Kroos and the arrival of Mbappe. He has had more defensive duties than last season.

The coaching staff are delighted with him — for his quality, his work ethic, his humour around the dressing room and his desire to improve. The only question mark hanging over Bellingham is whether he will finally need to have an operation on his left shoulder, which has been an issue since November last year, when he dislocated it against Rayo Vallecano. The answer is not straightforward. Some specialists advise surgery, others say it is not essential and point out former Madrid striker Karim Benzema played for years without having a fracture in the little finger of his right hand fixed.

Asked about the issue in the build-up to the Intercontinental Cup final, Bellingham appeared not to be thinking about surgery: “I’m still in the sling. Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable but the general feeling of my shoulder is very good.”

After being thrashed 4-0 at home by Barcelona in El Clasico at the end of October, Madrid fell six points behind their great rivals in La Liga.

A month later, things were looking up domestically but not in the Champions League. Ancelotti’s side were convincingly beaten by Liverpool, making it three defeats from their first five games in the new-look tournament. At that stage they were occupying 24th spot in the 36-team table — the final place for qualification to the play-off stage to decide the eight sides who will complete the last 16.

Then they held on for that much-needed 3-2 win away to Atalanta and Ancelotti sent a strong message afterwards: “If we get to Christmas alive, everything will be fine.” He feels that his team are improving, that little by little things are getting better, and that Madrid will take another step forward when their injured players return and are back up to speed.

Also key to Madrid’s success is Ancelotti’s faith in his three brightest stars. Vinicius Jr and Bellingham are already looking back to their usual selves, and Mbappe, the club are confident, will sooner or later be ruthless again in front of goal. It was not normal for someone of his quality and talent to miss so many big chances, and there have been glimpses of greatness from him in recent weeks.

“Of all the problems Real Madrid have, Mbappe is the smallest. He’s a superstar and he’s in the prime of his career,” said Jorge Valdano, the former Madrid player and later their sporting director, in November.

“On his day, he’s the best in the world and it’s a matter of time…” former Madrid forward Gareth Bale said about him after the defeat at Anfield.

Since then, Mbappe has improved, Bellingham has started having a big impact in attacking situations again and Vinicius Jr has been, well, Vinicius Jr: dependably brilliant.

Madrid are one point behind city neighbours Atletico at the top of La Liga after 18 games, and two clear of Barcelona, who have played a game more than both the sides above them.

And it feels like the ‘MVB’ partnership is only just getting started.

(Top photo: Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)