Less than a year after a night to forget, Kylian Mbappe returns to Anfield on Tuesday with a chance to show how far he has come. Real Madrid’s French superstar — now in blistering form — hopes to exorcise the ghosts of that difficult night and confirm his spectacular resurgence.
In November 2024, amid a turbulent spell for Real Madrid marked by three defeats in five games, Mbappe endured one of his lowest points. Tasked with rescuing his team, he missed a crucial penalty in a 2–0 loss to Liverpool, then followed it up with another defeat in Bilbao. The setback triggered an unprecedented crisis of confidence for the forward, who admitted later that he had “hit rock bottom.” “I changed my mindset,” Mbappe explained in a press conference. “I told myself I couldn’t do worse — only better. I had to prove I was a top player and help this team. I knew I could turn the situation around, and I did.”
The France captain spoke openly about the mental reset that reshaped his season. “I was overthinking things on the pitch,” he said. “And when you think too much, you stop playing your game. I told myself it was time to change because I didn’t come to Madrid to play badly.”
Since that low point — and the painful 4–0 defeat to PSG in the Club World Cup semi-final soon after — Mbappe has been unstoppable. With 18 goals in 14 matches across La Liga and the Champions League, including decisive performances in big fixtures like the ‘Clasico’ against Barcelona, he is enjoying the best start to a season of his career.
Not since Cristiano Ronaldo’s 2014–15 campaign (20 goals in his first 11 league games) has a Madrid player begun so dominantly — not even Karim Benzema in his Ballon d’Or-winning season.
Last week, Mbappe also became the first Real Madrid player since Ronaldo to claim the European Golden Shoe, celebrated with fanfare at the Santiago Bernabéu — inevitably inviting comparisons with the idol whose posters once covered his bedroom walls in Bondy. “Cristiano is the benchmark here in Madrid — he’s number one,” Mbappe told ‘Marca’. “I’ve only had one good year, maybe not even that. He did it for nine. It will take a long time before people can really compare me to him.”
Yet a statement performance at Anfield could push those comparisons a little closer — and bring Mbappe one step nearer to his twin goals: winning the Champions League and the Ballon d’Or in Real Madrid white.
