\n<\/p>\n
France forward Ousmane Dembele has defended his national team captain Kylian Mbappe, saying criticism of the Real Madrid striker has gone “too far”.<\/b><\/p>\n
Mbappe is the subject of intense scrutiny in both Spain – where Real failed to win a trophy this season – and his home nation since taking over the France captaincy<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n “The criticism towards him is very, very unfair. Some people go a bit too far with the criticism of Kylian,” Dembele told Spanish newspaper Marca.<\/p>\n “He’s an incredible player and a very good person off the pitch. Some people overdo the criticism because he’s Kylian Mbappe. They shouldn’t keep going after him.<\/p>\n “Whether he ties his shoelaces or not, whether he pulls up his socks or not… it’s too much. He’s still a human being. With the France team, he’s very good with us, he’s a leader.”<\/p>\n Dembele is a contender for this year’s Ballon d’Or, having helped Paris St-Germain – whom Mbappe left in 2024 for Real Madrid – to their second successive Champions League title.<\/p>\n He and Mbappe are both likely to start France’s World Cup opener against Senegal on Tuesday, with group fixtures against Iraq and Norway to follow.<\/p>\n Dembele also paid tribute to coach Didier Deschamps, who announced last year that he will step down after the World Cup<\/a> following more than a decade in charge of the national side.<\/p>\n “He’s simply an exceptional coach,” Dembele said. “He will forever remain a legend among French national team coaches.”<\/p>\n Deschamps guided France to the World Cup title in 2018 and another final four years later.<\/p>\n Mbappe netted a hat-trick in the 2022 final<\/a>which Dembele also started, having also scored the fourth goal in the 4-2 win over Croatia<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n Asked about the prospect of former France great Zinedine Zidane succeeding Deschamps, Dembele spoke positively of the idea.<\/p>\n “We hope to welcome him one day to the France bench. I’m convinced he would do a fantastic job,” he added.<\/p>\n Zidane, who won the World Cup as a player alongside Deschamps in 1998, later enjoyed major success coaching Real Madrid and has long been linked with the France job.<\/p>\n The 53-year-old has repeatedly declined to discuss the position while Deschamps remains in charge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" France forward Ousmane Dembele has defended his national team captain Kylian Mbappe, saying criticism of the Real Madrid striker has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}