Here is the match in the match: Wissam Ben Yedder, current top scorer in Ligue 1 (13 goals), versus Kylian Mbappé, his runner-up (11 goals). This face-to-face of the two best triggers in the championship puts a little spice on this PSG-Monaco, especially since - and this is rare enough to emphasize - the young Parisian, holding the title with 33 achievements the season last, is for once in the position of the hunter. But is there really a match? Is Ben Yedder (29) able to go the distance and compete with the 2018 world champion, 21, until the end of the season?
"For me the best scorer of the season, it will be Mbappé, advises bluntly Patrice Garande, the former coach of Caen and top scorer of D1 in 1983-1984 (Editor's note: removing the penalties) . A goal scorer is dependent on what's going on around him. Each match of PSG in Ligue 1, there are 10 or 12 occasions for Paris and 3, 4 or 5 for Mbappé. The two players do not play in exactly the same conditions. "
Let us add that the Parisian, since he recovered all his physical capacities, pursues a frantic pace with 10 goals to his credit in his last 8 games. At this rate, it should not take long to find your leader's chair. Not to mention that his thigh injury on August 25 against Toulouse (4-0), deprived him of six Ligue 1 games and that his ratio is much higher than his competitor.
Two attackers with different registers
"He is an exceptional player," confirms Garande. His last match against Saint-Etienne was extraordinary because he scored but also gave assists. He had everything right and, if he confirms this sense of the collective, he will have experienced real progress. For the former Caen coach, the two international tricolors do not evolve, anyway, in the same register.
During his three seasons in Seville (2016-2019), Ben Yedder affirmed and refined the scoring qualities that he already demonstrated in Toulouse before leaving France in the summer of 2016. Recognized for his ability to combine speed and efficiency in small spaces, the native of Sarcelles, trained in the futsal school, became much more lethal in front of the opposing goal until scoring 30 goals last season.
“Ben Yedder is no longer a surface player. Even with a lot of people, he is able to control, eliminate, make the call of a meter to pass in front of the defender, all these attitudes typical of a center forward, confesses Garande. Mbappé performs better when he has space and puts speed into his game. Besides, I don't consider Mbappé to be a center-forward. When he plays in the axis with Icardi, we often see him eccentric in order to enter the surface. These are two players who do not have the same qualities at all, nor the same profile. "Two very different players who are pursuing the same goal. That to put a maximum.