The former Real Madrid striker and sporting director spoke on Movistar this week to push back against what he described as a disproportionate and damaging treatment of the French forward — a player he named as perhaps the best in the world right now.
The backdrop is a difficult season at the Santiago Bernabeu. Real Madrid finished without a trophy. Paris Saint-Germain, the club Mbappe left in 2024, have reached the Champions League final under Luis Enrique and are widely praised as a more coherent collective without him. The contrast has fuelled a narrative that places Mbappe at the centre of both stories simultaneously — responsible for Madrid's failures, and implicitly responsible for PSG's success by his absence.
Valdano rejected that framing entirely.
"He has won a World Cup and has been runner-up in another, scoring three goals in the final," he said. "We are not talking about a fraud. We are talking about perhaps the best player in the world at this moment."
Mbappe finished as LaLiga's top scorer for the second consecutive season despite the collective struggles around him.
"To place the responsibility for everything good that happens to Paris Saint-Germain and everything bad that happens to Real Madrid on this man, who is the maximum goalscorer in the championship, seems like an abuse to me," Valdano added.
The 27-year-old has faced a difficult environment at the Bernabeu. He has been whistled by sections of his own supporters on multiple occasions during the season, and criticism in France has intensified following his absence from the national squad ahead of the World Cup through injury.
Valdano's argument is not that Mbappe has been beyond reproach. It is that the scale of the blame directed at him vastly exceeds what the evidence warrants for a player who remains, by the most objective measure available, the league's leading scorer.
Real Madrid will not have a new head coach in place for the World Cup. The reconstruction of the squad and the project around Mbappe will begin in earnest when the summer is properly underway.
Whether the scrutiny lifts when results improve is a question that answers itself.