Kylian Mbappe Struggles Again at Anfield as Liverpool Beats Real Madrid 1-0

Kylian Mbappe has been near-unstoppable this season.

At Anfield on Tuesday, he hit a roadblock. Again.

For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget on Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0 in the Champions League, and Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season.

“We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually.

But the France World Cup winner rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team that has been so defensively fragile for much of the campaign.

Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games and having produced the kind of form that is likely to put him in contention to finally win the Ballon d’Or award. But he managed just three attempts throughout the match, with none of them hitting the target. Vinicius Junior, too, was largely kept on the fringes of the action.

Liverpool coach Arne Slot said he had sharpened the focus of his players before the match by reminding them of goal contributions made by Mbappe and Vinicius this season.

“I told the players before the game they (Madrid) have scored 26 goals in La Liga and Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius have 24 goal contributions together,” he said. “I don’t think you can ever control these two completely, but you can do a few things well.”

Mbappe’s best opportunity came in the second half with Madrid trailing Alexis Mac Allister’s 61st-minute header. Receiving the ball inside the box he shaped to curl a shot into the top corner — only for his effort to drift well wide of the goal.