Kylian Mbappé will play his first match at the RCD Espanyol stadium to open the 2026-27 season. The French striker, the league's top scorer in the last two campaigns with 31 and 25 goals, will score his first goal at the perico venue.
Mbappé Returns to Espanyol
The Real Madrid forward will join a list that includes Eugenio, Pahíño, Breitner, Míchel, Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale and Rodrygo. He will do so at a stadium where he has yet to score. He played his only match there to date and lost.
Stadiums Without Goals
The Espanyol stadium is one of six top-flight venues that have yet to see the French striker score. The others are Las Palmas, Elche and Rayo Vallecano (in all four cases, Mbappé has played only once), plus the two times he has visited Mallorca and Betis.
Villarreal is the only stadium where he has scored in La Liga. The two times he appeared at La Cerámica were to lead his team to victory with four goals, two in each of them. Next is Barcelona: three league goals, all at Montjuïc two seasons ago. Madrid fell 4-3 in the match where Mbappé is the only league presence on blue-green ground.
Context of His Career
Real Madrid opened the league with a 1-0 win over Osasuna at the Santiago Bernabéu, thanks to a penalty goal from Mbappé. In the last season, Real Madrid visited Espanyol in early May and he was diagnosed with a semitendinosus muscle injury in his left leg. The injury occurred after he joined Madrid from Cagliari, just minutes before the match in Cornellà-El Prat, which ended 0-2 in favour of Madrid.
Mbappé was the author of the first goal for Madrid in both 2023 and 2024, and his return to Espanyol marks the start of a new chapter in which he seeks to close the gap of the six goal-free stadiums.
