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Ahead of his third season at Real Madrid, it still feels as though Kylian Mbappe has plenty left to prove.

That mood was clear from Mbappe’s press conference on the eve of the Champions League’s return, with the 27-year-old facing a barrage of questions from the Madrid media over why the partnership between the superclub and the superstar has still not truly clicked. The subjects ranged from his relationship with fellow forward Vinicius Jr, amid rumours that the two do not get along, to the state of the dressing room after last season’s reports of in-fighting under Xabi Alonso and then Alvaro Arbeloa.

At the very end of the tense media interaction, Mbappe was reminded that he has still not won a major trophy with Real Madrid, while his former club Paris Saint-Germain have lifted back-to-back Champions League titles since his departure. The familiar and persistent narrative since Mbappe left PSG is that Luis Enrique has turned them into a team, whereas Real Madrid appear to have moved backwards, looking more like an expensive collection of individuals.

Mbappe’s answer, unsurprisingly, was defensive. After all, he is only two months on from becoming the World Cup’s all-time leading goalscorer and from a summer that has already placed him among the greatest players in the tournament’s history. Those 10 goals in North America came after a second season in which he scored 42 goals in only 44 appearances for Real Madrid, form that should place the France forward among the leading contenders for this year’s Ballon d’Or.

But the contrast between Mbappe with France and Mbappe with Madrid continues to work against him, and it shapes the backdrop to his third season at the Bernabeu. After two seasons without silverware, Jose Mourinho has returned for a second spell, with the message being that only Mourinho’s stature and the shadow of what he once represented can restore the discipline and control needed for their attacking talent to thrive.

Even so, Mourinho has already been handed his first test after Friday’s 1-0 defeat away to Real Betis, a match in which Mbappe missed a late penalty. Madrid are already behind defending champions Barcelona, who have scored 17 goals in their opening four wins of the LaLiga season. Even this early in the campaign, Barcelona are setting the benchmark and laying down a challenge not just through their results but through the way they attack and defend as a unit. The point put to Mbappe was that he and Vinicius do not contribute enough defensively for the team, before both were compared with examples such as Ousmane Dembele at PSG and Raphinha at Barcelona.

Mbappe’s reply, however, was revealing. “If I wanted to be stupid, I could tell you that I score more goals than those two players you mentioned, so they need to score more to be like me. Everyone's different,” he said. “But I'm smart, so I'll tell you that I need to improve. But I don't like comparing myself because I do a lot of things that others don't. It's an endless debate. But yes, the whole team needs to improve defensively, and with the ball, we need to raise our level too.”

And, in fairness to Mbappe, perhaps too much of his Real Madrid career so far has been spent dwelling on the parts of his game he does not possess, rather than on the qualities he unquestionably brings. Dembele may be a Ballon d’Or winner and a two-time Champions League winner, but he did not dominate another World Cup in the way Mbappe did, nor can he take control of a match in quite the same way as his France team-mate. The same line of comparison extends to Raphinha. Mbappe accepts that others may disagree and that they are entitled to their own view, but he left no doubt about his own belief that he is the best player in the world.

That does not place him beyond scrutiny, though, especially given where he plays. There was a brief period in the summer when Arsenal’s move for Vinicius presented Real Madrid with a chance to shape their attack around Mbappe, rather than trying to fit two players who both prefer to drift in from the left into the same side. It even became part of Arsenal’s ambitious thinking, but with the Brazilian staying, the responsibility is now on both of them to make the partnership function on the pitch. For all Mbappe’s gifts as a goalscorer, he will also be judged on Real Madrid’s balance this season. After two campaigns without a trophy, the pressure is firmly on once again.