{"id":3383,"date":"2026-06-15T13:57:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3383"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:57:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:57:39","slug":"world-cup-2026-kylian-mbappe-plans-to-increase-defensive-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3383","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Kylian Mbappe plans to increase defensive work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">France captain Kylian Mbappe has vowed to increase his defensive efforts as the two-time world champions prepare to get their World Cup campaign under way against Senegal on Tuesday.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 27-year-old Real Madrid striker has faced scrutiny over both his performances and leadership for club and country, with international team-mate Ousmane Dembele publicly backing him, saying that the criticism had gone &#8220;too far&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking to French newspaper La Parisien, Mbappe faced questions from team-mates and friends, and when teased about his defensive ability by younger brother Ethan, who plays for Ligue 1 side Lille, he acknowledged that he has work to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I need to take the extra step (with my defensive work) because it&#8217;s something important for the team and I have to do it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It will start this time because we want to win, and to win, I&#8217;m ready to do whatever because I want to win at all costs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France captain Kylian Mbappe has vowed to increase his defensive efforts as the two-time world champions prepare to get their&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3383","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\/3383","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=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}