Is LaLiga ready for dominant Real Madrid with Kylian Mbappé? - ESPN

«Uff.» If it's possible to sigh and smile at the same time, that's what Girona coach Michel did. ESPN just asked the manager who pushed Real Madrid closest in last season's LaLiga title race how his team will cope now that Madrid have signed arguably the best forward on the planet, Kylian Mbappé. (They open their 2024-25 season at Mallorca: Watch it Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+ in the U.S.)

His reaction doesn't suggest sleepless nights spent devising how to stop him, exactly, but it does express a kind of resignation. «Obviously, Real Madrid were the best team in the league,» Michel said. «They only lost one game. And Mbappé will improve them.»

Girona outperformed everybody's expectations in 2023-24, leading LaLiga for a period until their title challenge fizzled out late in the season. They still finished 14 points behind champions Madrid, in third place. Michel worked miracles to get Girona into that position — albeit with the backing of the club's part-owners, City Football Group — and in the end, it wasn't even close to being enough.

«The other day, the Alavés manager, Luis García [Plaza], was saying that we were heading towards an era of Real Madrid dominance because they have very young players,» Michel tells ESPN. «You see the power that Madrid have. The rest of us are thinking about how we can hurt that team. Madrid with Mbappé are going to improve a lot — above all, in attack. It's a nice challenge for everyone who has to play against them.

»We're talking about what could be an era-defining team."

Madrid won a LaLiga and Champions League double last season despite some glaring deficiencies in their squad. Their goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, spent most of last season on the sideline with an ACL tear. So did two of