Kylian Mbappé Reflects on VAR Chaos During Missed Penalty
Kylian Mbappé has taken ownership of a rare misstep from the spot, but he did not hide how a chaotic VAR sequence cut straight through his concentration.
The forward, speaking after the match to RMC Sport, walked through a muddled few minutes that turned a routine penalty into a mental maze.
“I didn't shoot well,” Mbappé admitted. No excuses. No attempt to pin it on the referee. Just a blunt assessment of the kick itself. But what happened around it was anything but straightforward.
He explained how the confusion started once the referee pointed to the spot.
“The referee tells me there's a penalty. So I ask him if the VAR check is complete, and he says yes,” Mbappé said. At that point, everything moves into the familiar script: Ousmane Dembélé hands him the ball, the crowd holds its breath, the taker locks in.
“From that moment on, we transition to Ousmane (Dembele), who gives me the ball,” he continued. “Then he comes to me, when I'm already focused, to tell me there's no penalty.”
The rhythm shattered. The routine broken. Mbappé suddenly found himself in limbo, ball in hand, with the decision apparently overturned.
“So I don't know, I pick up the ball, put it down again, thinking there's a penalty, and he tells me, 'No, wait, there's an action two minutes earlier that needs to be checked’.”
The stop-start nature of VAR is hardly new, but this was something different: a referee first confirming the penalty, then rowing back while another phase of play was scrutinised. For a penalty taker, that is a nightmare scenario. The run-up becomes a waiting room.
Mbappé, though, refused to hide behind the chaos.
“But that's how it is, I let myself get distracted,” he said. He spoke like a player dissecting his own preparation as much as the incident itself. “I've certainly gone through a lot of scenarios about how to concentrate on a penalty, but I hadn't considered this particular scenario yet.”
This is where his words cut to the heart of the modern game. The technology is here to stay. So are the delays, the reversals, the long pauses where players are left to stew in their own thoughts.
“It's a scenario we'll have to consider because the referee can tell you there's a penalty, but then two minutes later he can tell you there isn't,” Mbappé said. “I don't know how long it lasted. It's part of the new football. It's the new football with VAR, you have to adapt.”
That last line lands with weight. For all his experience, all his big nights and high-pressure moments, even Mbappé is still mapping out what elite composure looks like in an era where a whistle no longer settles anything.
The spot-kick was missed. The lesson, he suggests, will not be.
