In the UEFA Super Cup match between Real Madrid and Atalanta, we were treated to our first glimpse of Real Madrid’s new attacking line-up, featuring the France best player, Kylian Mbappe, who is now paired with Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham.
We saw early signs of their brilliant synergy and chemistry in their link-up play. In the second half, they linked up to create the first goal for Mbappé. Where Vinicius passes the ball into the box, it misses everyone, Bellingham picks it up, does a nice little shimmy, and lays the ball off perfectly into space for Mbappé to score his debut goal.
This is everything Real Madrid fans could have dreamed of and it’s almost unfair to the rest of the footballing world that these three players, three of the most talented players in the world, Mbappé, Bellingham, Vinicius, are now going to be united in this formidable Real Madrid side, with a solid foundation behind them and an infrastructure built for success with a manager like Carlo Ancelotti.
This trio is poised to become one of the greatest attacking trios of all time. So let’s look at the other great attacking trios and how these three might compare.
Football Best Attacking Trios
When discussing legendary attacking trios, two most recent examples stand out. You have the Messi, Suarez and Neymar MSN for Barcelona, and Bale, Benzema and Ronaldo BBC for Real Madrid.
Although the BBC trio were more successful in terms of trophies, one could argue that the Barcelona’s trio was a better trio because of their ability to link up play and their overall chemistry on and off the pitch.
The Barcelona trio enjoyed playing together, they often toyed with defenses, they selflessly assisted one another and they embodied the essence of being a great attacking unit.
Whereas the BBC trio, while also very highly, highly effective, they often played in the service for Ronaldo to score.
Other notable trios include Liverpool’s Mane, Firmino and Salah, Manchester United’s Bobby Charter. George Best and Denis Law, Brazil’s Ronaldo, Ronaldinho.
However, this new trio are Real Madrid of Mbappe, Vinicius and Bellingham, let’s call them MVB for short, has the potential to surpass all the previous greats.
They’re young, they’re talented, they’ve got chemistry already, and they possess all the qualities needed to be remembered as the best attacking trio of all time.
So while we discuss some great attacking trios, let’s look at some attacking trios that failed.
Failed Attacking Trios In Football
The most recent example is PSG’s attempt to combine superstars Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe together. This experiment serves as a clear lesson on how not to build a successful attacking trio.
The team lacked a winning culture, they were composed of individuals rather than a cohesive unit, and most importantly, the front three had no chemistries.
For a trio to succeed, each player must understand and embrace their role within the team. At PSG, it was not like that. Messi was near at the end of his career, Neymar was injury-prone and past his peak, and Mbappe was the young star who felt the team should revolve around him.
The imbalance and lack of unity were just flaws, and they never succeeded.
Another example of a failed trio is Real Madrid’s 2002 experiment with combining Ronaldo, Zidane, and Figo together.
All these players were legends, but they were past their primes and they lacked the youthful energy necessary to drive a team forward, and that’s why they failed.
So in contrast, the new Mbappe-Vinicius-Bellingham trio, they have to avoid all these pitfalls that PSG and the old Real Madrid had.
They are young, they’re hungry, and crucially, they balance in terms of their talent and ambitions of where they are in their careers. There’s no clear hierarchy in this trio, where one player dominates, instead, they’re all capable of contributing equally to the team’s success.
So now that we’ve outlined the factors that lead to successful trios, and we outlined the factors that lead to failed attacking trios, it’s clear that Mbappe-Vinicius-Bellingham have all the ingredients to succeed.
All three players are relatively young. Mbappe is 25, Vinicius is 24, and Bellingham the baby of the trio at 21.
The early good signs from the Atalanta match were glaring. The players were looking for the right passes, with Bellingham as a midfielder, often finding either Vinicius or Mbappe in dangerous positions.
There were concerns before that Vinicius and Mbappe might clash, given their preference of both playing on the left, but that was dispelled as we saw Mbappe seamlessly transition into the No. 9 role.
It can be said that he’s clearly set to follow in the footsteps of his two idols, Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo. Both of them who started on the left and moved centrally to become pure goal scorers.
Another moment that showed their unity in chemistry was when Mbappe did score and did his iconic celebration, who was there right behind him? Vinicius was the first one to come and do the celebration with him. So they’ve got the chemistry, they’re young, they’re ambitious, they’re showing signs of playing selfless.
If you look at Bellingham, his role as a midfielder, that makes this attacking trio even more unique, as most great attacking trios are all composed of wingers and strikers. So now that Bellingham is a midfielder, Mbappe is a striker, and Vinicius on the left, they can all just occupy the left space and have that interconnected play. Bellingham could orchestrate the play and look to make the right pass to his attacking partners.
It remains yet to be seen if Mbappe’s ego will come into effect in this team, because though he might be the best player in the world, both Vinicius and Bellingham are already Champions League winners before Mbappe got here. So Mbappe is the one who will have to adapt to their style and succeed.
How Much Success Can Mbappe, Vini JR and Bellingham Achieve?
We have now discussed how good the attacking trio can be, the mentality, the style of play, everything is going for them and then the final factor of why they can achieve so much success is that Real Madrid have created this dominant side, and they have no big threats against them.
They have no rivals. Barcelona and Atletico are not that good right now. The league is weak so as it stands, they should cruise through the Spanish league and just concentrate on winning the Champions League.
Over the past 10 years, they’ve already won the Champions League 6 times. They already have unrivaled success in Champions League, so who knows how many more trophies they could win.
The team’s got solid foundations with established hard-working players and talented players like Valverde, Tchouameni, Rudiger, Rodrigo and Courtois. You have old veteran leaders like Modric and Carvajal as well.
Then you also got the emergence of young talents like Arda Guler and endrick, who’ll be knocking on the door to get into the first team. They’ll be providing that energy and excitement around the team.
All these elements creates the perfect storm for the three superstars. Mbappe, Vinicius and Bellingham to lead Real Madrid to glory and then cement themselves as the greatest attacking trio of all time.
Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. See you again.