“Uff.” If it’s possible to sigh and smile at the same time, that’s what Girona coach Michel did. ESPN just asked the manager who pushed Real Madrid closest in last season’s LaLiga title race how his team will cope now that Madrid have signed arguably the best forward on the planet, Kylian Mbappé. (They open their 2024-25 season at Mallorca: Watch it Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+ in the U.S.)
His reaction doesn’t suggest sleepless nights spent devising how to stop him, exactly, but it does express a kind of resignation. “Obviously, Real Madrid were the best team in the league,” Michel said. “They only lost one game. And Mbappé will improve them.”
Girona outperformed everybody’s expectations in 2023-24, leading LaLiga for a period until their title challenge fizzled out late in the season. They still finished 14 points behind champions Madrid, in third place. Michel worked miracles to get Girona into that position — albeit with the backing of the club’s part-owners, City Football Group — and in the end, it wasn’t even close to being enough.
“The other day, the Alavés manager, Luis García [Plaza], was saying that we were heading towards an era of Real Madrid dominance because they have very young players,” Michel tells ESPN. “You see the power that Madrid have. The rest of us are thinking about how we can hurt that team. Madrid with Mbappé are going to improve a lot — above all, in attack. It’s a nice challenge for everyone who has to play against them.
“We’re talking about what could be an era-defining team.”
Madrid won a LaLiga and Champions League double last season despite some glaring deficiencies in their squad. Their goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, spent most of last season on the sideline with an ACL tear. So did two of Madrid’s best defenders, Éder Militão and David Alaba. Their number nine shirt was vacant, unoccupied after the club opted not to sign a top centre-forward in the wake of Karim Benzema’s exit. And they still ended up walking the league. Since then, they’ve filled that void in attack in the most convincing way, signing Mbappé on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain with a five-year contract.
Mbappé made his Madrid debut on Wednesday, scoring in their 2-0 UEFA Super Cup win over Atalanta. Madrid’s second-half performance — and their second goal in particular — offered a glimpse of the havoc their new-look attack should cause for opponents this season. Rodrygo won the ball and played it to Vinícius Júnior, who crossed for Jude Bellingham, whose cutback found Mbappé in space. It wasn’t just a goal — it was a warning. After the match, an excited touchline reporter for Spanish television asked Mbappé if 50 goals were a reasonable target for him this season. “I have no limit,” he said. “If it’s 50 goals, it’s 50.”
Girona were Madrid’s closest rivals for much of last season, but a repeat in 2024-25 would be a major surprise. Their squad has been stripped bare this summer, with midfielder Aleix García joining Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen, winger Savinho moving to CFG’s Manchester City, and forward Artem Dovbyk signing for Roma. Having lost the spine of the team, competing for top four for the second year in a row will be difficult enough.
But if Girona aren’t expected to challenge Real Madrid, Barcelona are. That’s always the case, regardless of circumstances. The two superclubs exist in constant competition with each other, even when the state of their finances couldn’t be more different: Madrid signed a new top earner in Mbappé, just as Barcelona do financial gymnastics to try to register their new signings like Spain’s Dani Olmo, within their LaLiga-imposed salary cap.
Barcelona finished 10 points behind Madrid last season, an outcome that got club legend Xavi Hernandez fired and Hansi Flick, former Bayern Munich and Germany coach, appointed in his place. Now, Flick and his new team will have to contend with Mbappé.
“Real Madrid is a team that always has good players, always has quality. So do we,” Barca midfielder Ilkay Gündogan — always a straight talker — told ESPN. “It’s always going to be a duel, whether that’s against each other straight away, or in the league throughout several months, of the highest standard. So whoever might come, or might go, or might be there, they will have quality.”
Six of the 10 points that separated Madrid and Barcelona last season were the result of Barca losing each LaLiga Clasico. Madrid won 2-1 at Montjuic on Oct. 28, and 3-2 at the Bernabeu on April 21. Barca dominated both games for extended spells, playing some exceptional football. But Madrid’s most recent star signing before Mbappé, Jude Bellingham, made sure that Madrid came out on top both times, notching an added-time winner in each game.
Bellingham’s impact last season is an example for Mbappé to follow. He hit the ground running, scoring a club record 14 goals in his first 15 games and winning Madrid’s fans over with his attitude and application. It was a symptom of LaLiga’s relative lack of attacking firepower that Bellingham, a midfielder, was the division’s leading scorer for much of the 2023-24 season. In the end, his 19 goals left him third in the Pichichi race, behind Girona’s Dovbyk with 24 goals and Alexander Sorloth — then of Villarreal, since signed by Atletico Madrid this summer — with 23.
Barcelona’s centre-forward, Robert Lewandowski, ended up scoring the same number of goals as Bellingham — 19 in 35 LaLiga appearances — but the contrast between the perception of their respective seasons was stark. For a start, 19 goals was Lewandowski’s lowest league tally in nine years and the 35-year-old faced sustained criticism as a result, with some arguing he is now in decline after a long, illustrious career. In Mbappé, Madrid now possess the leading candidate for the Pichichi crown in 2024-25.
As you might expect, Lewandowski isn’t fazed.
“Of course [Mbappé] is an amazing player,” Lewandowski told ESPN this month. “Real Madrid is also an amazing club, and they are playing very well, but I think they also have problems … We are more focused on what we want to do, how we want to play. We are more focused on ourselves, what we have inside, what we can do. They have their own problems with new players, with the system.”
Lewandowski was alluding to doubts around how Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti might fit Mbappé into the team. In the past, Mbappé has been reluctant to play as a centre-forward — preferring to have more freedom alongside a “target man” — but that’s exactly where he played against Atalanta in the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday, with Rodrygo on the right, Vinícius on the left, and Bellingham behind them.
Both Ancelotti and Mbappé have insisted it won’t be an issue. “I’ll play where the boss wants. I can play in all three positions in attack. For me, it isn’t a debate,” Mbappé said during his presentation on July 16. “I don’t want to come here, score goals and go home. I want to adapt to the team.”
If there’s one attribute that defines Mbappé, it’s pace. It’s the first quality Bellingham named on Wednesday when listing what had impressed most about his new teammate, followed by the France international’s off-the-ball movement and communication skills. “Now I’ve had the chance to play with him, and see the details a little bit closer,” Bellingham said. “I can’t speak highly enough of him.”
Barcelona’s fastest player last season (per LaLiga’s official statistics) was defender Alejandro Balde, before he missed the second half of the campaign with a hamstring injury that kept him out of the Spain squad that won Euro 2024. “We’re Barça. We always have to be prepared to fight against any opponent,” Balde told ESPN, when asked about Mbappé. “We have more than enough of a team and a squad to compete, against Madrid or whoever… Yes, Mbappé is one of the best players in the world. But we aren’t going to think about anybody else. We have to focus on ourselves.”
Madrid start the 2024-25 LaLiga season away at Real Mallorca on Sunday, a day after Barcelona kick off their campaign at Valencia. As always when the fixture list was released, all eyes were on the date of the first Clasico of the season, at the Bernabeu on Oct. 27. The return won’t come until over six months later, when Madrid visit Barcelona on May 11.
“Of course [Real Madrid are] a very strong opponent in general. It’s a strong team,” Barca keeper Marc-André ter Stegen told ESPN this month, when asked about the size of the challenge awaiting them as they look to win the league title back. “They have established players and a lot of quality. But I think we don’t need to hide. We have a great team. We are very balanced, and I’m really looking forward to the season. I hope to be very competitive.”
It’s one thing for Barcelona to ponder how best to deal with Mbappé’s Madrid but how about a team that’s only just won promotion back to the top flight? Espanyol finished fourth in Spain’s Second Division last season, winning promotion in June, squeezing past Real Oviedo in the playoffs. They’ll face Mbappé at the Bernabeu in five weeks’ time.
“Obviously [Mbappé’s] signing improves the team,” Espanyol’s highly rated goalkeeper Joan García, 23, told ESPN. “But in football, there are thousands of things that you can’t control. Good players always help a team in theory, but you’ll have to see how they all work together.”
Madrid pursued Mbappé for so long, waiting patiently for another two years after he turned his back on them in 2022 to sign a new PSG contract, because they believe he could become as dominant a force in LaLiga as the two biggest names of the last decade, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Those two redefined the number of goals a team could expect from a world-class forward.
Messi managed 50 for Barca in the 2011-12 LaLiga season while Ronaldo scored 48 league goals in 2014-15. Is it realistic to expect Mbappé to reach those heights?
“It’s very difficult,” Garcia said. “[Mbappé] is a good player, but you have to take into account how Messi and Cristiano had long careers in the first division. We’ll have to see how the season evolves … His signing is positive for the league, but one player can’t be the league’s only attraction. Spanish football is in a great moment: the under-19s won [the Euros], the gold medal at the Olympic Games, champions of Europe. We have to value our own players, too.”
The presence of a number of Spain’s Euro 2024-winning team means LaLiga’s stardust this season won’t be concentrated solely in Madrid, either. There’s the electrifying Nico Williams, who looks like he’s staying at Athletic Club, and Olmo, who joined Lamine Yamal at Barcelona after the Euros. Elsewhere, Atletico Madrid are rebuilding with a purpose, recruiting Julián Álvarez from Manchester City to lead the attack, with Robin Le Normand and Sorloth also arriving. Martín Zubimendi rejected Liverpool to stay at Real Sociedad, while Isco should light up the league again with Real Betis once he’s recovered from his broken leg.
If there’s one lesson to be gleaned from Real Madrid’s 21st century history, it’s that having the best players doesn’t always make for the best team. Just look at the mid-2000s Galacticos, now a cautionary tale in how not to assemble a balanced squad.
“Real Madrid have invested heavily, they might start off as favourites, but in football, fortunately, there can always be surprises,” Espanyol’s Garcia said. “You have to accept it will be difficult. But in football, anything can happen.”