A plan to stop Mbappé? Double to ‘shut up’ all of Denmark

If there is a plan, it has not yet come to light. If there is a formula, football scientists have yet to put it to the test. If there is a moment, in Qatar 2022 it seems that it will not be. There is no way to stop Kylian Mbappé, even if the Danish coach has threatened to do so.

Although Denmark is the ‘cuckoo’ of France -it came from three games in a row without losing with a draw and two victories-, for Mbappé in the big events there is no one who fears him. “We have a plan to stop him. In Copenhagen, during the last game we beat them, we created a structure to stop him”, declared the coach Kasper Hjulmand on Friday, but Denmark was far from putting it into practice.

And it was in the second half when Kylian was in charge of disrupting any plan against him. Double to give France the victory and qualify for the round of 16. Two goals in his style, the first generating a counterattack and finishing it himself, and the second appearing in the area to get ahead of the entire defense.

A low-key performance turned into a dream. It is that Mbappé is enough with a race, with a play, with a feint to make himself noticed. Already with three goals he is the scorer of Qatar 2022 together with the Ecuadorian Enner Valencia.

In the match in which Denmark beat France last September in the Nations League, did they really stop Mbappé? The attacker managed 4 shots, although only one of them went to the goal. He won 5 out of 11 duels and only had 3 successful dribbles out of 9. It was Danish night that time.

But in Qatar 2022 things changed. Four shots on target for Mbappé and two of them were goals. Only one went outside, which unbelievably missed in the heart of the box. Perhaps they knew how to control his dribbling – he only had 2 successful attempts out of 6 – and they forced him to lose seven balls, but when he reaches the area there is no stopping him, and that is where the games are decided.

In Russia 2018 it was 0-0 for both to advance to the second round. This time there was no room for agreements and France came out with everything to look for the result. Goodbye curse of the champion, who since 2010 had been left out in the group stage. The curse today is for the other countries and is called Kylian Mbappé.

—