Is Kylian Mbappé so decisive in big Champions League matches?

For his last C1 match at the Parc des Princes under the Parisian colors, the French star will inevitably be expected at the turn, Tuesday, and could play the role of savior by taking his teammates to the final.

“Half time. This is Paris”. A few hours after the defeat suffered in Dortmund (0-1), Wednesday May 1, Kylian Mbappé made an appointment on his social networks for the semi-final return of the Champions League. Regardless of the result or the outcome, he will play his very last C1 match with Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes, Tuesday May 7. This year, no more Neymar or Lionel Messi. Expectations will therefore be enormous for the striker, whose departure at the end of the season has been announced. But he still has the opportunity to write the biggest story of his adventure with the capital club.

In the previous round, he remained silent in the first leg, before scoring the two goals which validated qualification in Barcelona, ​​without taking all the light. Will he do it again against Borussia Dortmund? Franceinfo: sport offers you a dive into Kylian Mbappé’s statistics in the Champions League, to measure to what extent the latter is decisive in big matches.

Already among the legends of the competition

From his debut at 17, and already 72 matches in the biggest club competition… Kylian Mbappé has been, for several seasons now, one of the faces of the Champions League. At only 25 years old, he is already in the Top 10 of C1 top scorers with 48 goals. A total which makes him equal to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, except that the Swede established it with 52 additional meetings.

If Mbappé scores a double at the Parc on Tuesday evening, he will join Thierry Henry in 8th place (50 goals). He would also become the second youngest player in the history of the competition to reach the 50 mark behind Lionel Messi (24 years and 284 days). For comparison, Cristiano Ronaldo had to wait until he turned 28 to do so.

He also scored against all the big names he faced: Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Real Madrid (remaining silent only against Atalanta, Naples, Leverkusen and CSKA Moscow).

He is by far PSG’s most reliable player

Paris no longer wins without him. There has been at least one goal from Kylian Mbappé in each of PSG’s last 12 Champions League victories. The last time the capital club won without its flagship player finding the net dates back to September 2021 (2-0 against Manchester City – he gave an assist). The expectations weighing on him are largely understandable.

Same thing for this feeling that he is not the type to string together two missed meetings in the Champions League. This season, he scored half of Paris’ 10 goals starting in the round of 16. After the (legitimate) criticism linked to his disappointing performance in the first leg against Barcelona, ​​he bounced back on the return leg, in Spain. Kylian Mbappé did not shine brightly, but it was he who converted the penalty which qualified his team.

There are reasons to believe in a new awakening in the return match, since the Bondy prodigy has not had two consecutive starts without scoring in C1 for three years (four matches in a row between April and September 2021).

But he still has two milestones to overcome

Kylian Mbappé may have broken almost every record within his reach at PSG, but he has very few memorable feats of arms in the C1 knockout phase. His hat-trick at Camp Nou in 2021 is the only time he left his mark on the evening, while guiding PSG to qualification.

The most critical may even add that he has never scored a single goal beyond the quarter-finals (four matches: zero goals, zero assists in the semi-finals and final), even though he has already done with AS Monaco in 2017 and several times with the French team. After all, the only year Paris Saint-Germain managed to reach the final, in 2020, Kylian Mbappé did not score a single goal in the knockout stage. Neymar had captured all the light by being the protagonist of the Final 8 in Lisbon.

In addition to his difficulties in the semi-finals, Kylian Mbappé does not shine as much as expected when he plays at home. The top scorer in PSG history has scored just three goals in 10 knockout matches played at the Parc des Princes (no doubles and each in the round of 16). For comparison, away from home, his record is 11 goals in 10 trips.