Explained: Who plays for Real Madrid on left wing, Vinicius or Mbappe

After years of twists and turns that would shame even the best Hollywood thrillers, Kylian Mbappe will finally join Real Madrid at the end of the current season. With this comes to and end one of the biggest transfers saga in recent memory. The Kylian Mbappe transfer timeline has seen it all from an almost completed deal in the summer of 2022 that ended with him staying at PSG following a lucrative contract to Real Madrid President Florentino Perez stating ‘This Mbappe is not the Mbappe I wanted’ . However, with the Frenchman joining Los Blancos, a key question emerges: for the last few years, Mbappe has been vocal about playing on the left wing. This demand made the upper hierarchy at PSG sweat as Neymar was donning the role while Mbappe played as the centre-forward.

The 25-year-old has played as a winger for the French national team, helping them win one World Cup and reach the final in the other. However, at Real Madrid, Mbappe faces competition for the left-wing spot with perhaps the most in-form and clutch player in the position, Vinicius Jr.

With this addition, Real Madrid now boasts an incredible triumvirate of Vinicius, Mbappe, and Rodrygo in attack. But how will Carlo Ancelotti solve Mbappe’s left-wing dilemma?

For this, we need to compare the two players and see which strategy could best be suited to harness the sky-high talent of the duo.

Vinicius Jr vs Kylian Mbappe heatmap comparison
One of the best ways to see a player’s positional brilliance is to analyse their heatmap. And when seeing both Mbappe and Vinicius Jr’s heatmap, it shows striking similarity. Both players love to use the inside left channel to bring the ball back on top of their favoured right foot, giving them a better chance of scoring, dribbling, or finding a teammate in a better situation.

Data analytics site xvalue categorises both of them as a one-to-one explorer, which means both are explosive players who use pace and dribbling skills to bamboozle their way past the opposition players. It is a trick they have pulled off again at the biggest stage.

However, since their methodology is very similar, it does throw up a challenge to ensure they don’t get in the way of one another during the game.

Vinicius Jr vs Kylian Mbappe stats comparison
Another way of finding who the better player is through stats. However, this season, Vinicius has played far fewer minutes for Madrid because of injuries. So, comparing the 2022-23 season, where both played nearly identical minutes, is the best way to go about it.

So, in which metric did the duo featured among the top five players in their respective leagues? The metrics were the Expected Threat (xT) on passing and carried, the Expected Offensive Value Added (xOVA), and shots on target. These metrics are a major indicator of a player’s attacking quality but usually do not infer that any two players are almost identical. For that, we need to look at other metrics. Luckily for us, the similarity continues there as well.

In the 2022-23 season, Vinicius and Mbappe were among the best players in terms of one-two opens, one-two closed, touches in the opposition box, and successful dribbles. All these, coupled with their near-identical heatmaps, are enough proof to show that they can be deadly on the left wing.

But who among the two talented players finally gets the position?

Vinicius Jr vs Kylian Mbappe left-wing solution?
So, how does one solve this dilemma? The answer to that lies in stats from the analytics site Transfermarkt. Taking the current 2023-24 season into account, an interesting observation comes to notice. According to Transfermarkt, Vinicius has played 21 times as a centre-forward this season and only twice as a left winger. At the same time, Mbappe has made 18 appearances as the sole striker and the remaining 12 as the left winger.

The reason for this is that both PSG and Real Madrid have now slowly incorporated tactics that allow them to have a fluid frontline that will enable players to change their position, something invented under Total Football and used to great effect by Jurgen Klopp with Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, and Roberto Firmino.

Moreover, despite their similar playing styles, the final objectives are somewhat different. Despite both topping the xT and xOVA, Mbappe has excelled while scoring, while Vinicius has topped the assists chart.

Ancelotti has also played Rodrygo and Vinicus Jr in a two-man frontline several times in the current season and could look to do so next season with Mbappe at the helm. Doing so will also leave them with defensive responsibilities, allowing them to wreak havoc in the final third of the pitch.