Woe be to any defender wandering out towards the corner flag to close down Kylian Mbappé.
Lorient defender Nathaniel Adjei suffered the particularly grim fate of trying to close off the Paris Saint-Germain star in an era where brief video clips of athletes doing remarkable things tend to spread quickly. When you’re a center back, going viral is almost never good news.
Adjei was just doing his job on the hour mark as Lorient trailed PSG 2-0, racing after an early ball over the top that picked out Mbappé.
It had already been a tough day at the office, and now this? We’ve all been there, Nathaniel.
It’s just that if you play for Lorient, your matches are televised. That surprise Friday meeting where you didn’t have time to prepare and then immediately got called on to speak by someone three levels up the org chart doesn’t get posted to social media with a music sting from the “slow, gritty hip-hop beats” part of the sample library.
And so, Adjei’s punishment for just being one of the best soccer players on earth in statistical terms, but not being quite as good as Mbappé was this: the France star first appeared to be trying to box Adjei out, only to realize he had the space to spin and face the 21-year-old defender.
Sensing the danger, Adjei threw his left foot at the ball, hoping to spare his blushes and simply concede a corner. Sadly for him, Mbappé saw that coming, dragging the ball away and meting out a terrible punishment for the attempt.
A flash of rapid touches later, and Mbappé strolled confidently away from Adjei, who was nearly falling over simply trying to keep his feet, let alone his dignity.
Just imagine the wave of Lorient fans muttering “mon dieu!” or “zut alors!” or some other French utterance of shock and dismay as this played out. They don’t want to see one of their promising young defenders done dirty like this!
But beyond shielding their eyes in the hopes of keeping the image from being too prominent in their memories, there’s nothing the fans or anyone else can do. If you look closely at the very pro-Lorient stands, you can see people put their hands over their faces as Mbappé mercilessly dances past Adjei.
Mbappé killed that 🥵🌟 pic.twitter.com/YaSBhLFzIe
— Ligue 1 English (@Ligue1_ENG) April 24, 2024
Not that it’s even all that important in the grand scheme of things when compared to a move like this, but Mbappé had an assist on the play to go with two goals in a 4-1 win.
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