PARIS (AP) — Kylian Mbappé returns to lead France against Croatia after a six-month absence and on Wednesday criticized himself over how he handled the captaincy before.
The Real Madrid star captains Les Bleus in Split in the first leg of a Nations League quarterfinal on Thursday, with the return leg on Sunday at Stade de France.
It will be his first start for France since a 3-1 loss to Italy on Sept. 6. That match was held at Parc des Princes, home to his former club Paris Saint-Germain. Mbappé said he did not handle things well at the time.
“I am lucid enough to know what I do well and what I don't do well. I know people were not happy with what I was doing on and off the field, and I wasn't doing them well,” Mbappé said at a pre-match news conference. “I have no problem questioning myself. I have never had any problem with criticism when it is deserved and well-argued.”
Back in September, Mbappé was subpar for Madrid and the national team but he hit back and said that people's opinions about him were “the least of my worries.”
He also said “I don't care” about the reception he will get playing again at PSG's stadium having left following months of strong tensions with the club's hierarchy and the fans.
Six months later, he accepts some of the criticism aimed his way at the time was valid.
“I didn't play well against Italy and my (pre-match) news conference didn’t please people, because as captain I didn’t bring people together,” Mbappé said. “I accept that, but now the most important thing is to move forward and not to repeat the same mistakes.”
The 26-year-old Mbappé is third on France’s all-time scoring list with 48 goals, but he has found the net in only two of his past 12 international games. There were doubts as to whether Mbappé would keep the captaincy, but he did so following discussions with coach Didier Deschamps.
The 2018 World Cup winner was left out of Nations League matches against Israel and Italy last November, when Deschamps said “ it’s better that way ” given Mbappé’s physical and mental struggles.
Mbappé was also absent from a previous gathering because of a minor thigh injury, but nevertheless played for Real Madrid, thus angering many France fans and raising questions over priorities between club and country.
After a difficult start to his Madrid career, Mbappé is now scoring freely and has 31 goals in 44 games this season.
“I am feeling good, I feel happy to play football,” Mbappé said. “I am happy to be here to help the (France) team.”
Mbappé only has Thierry Henry (51 goals) and Olivier Giroud (57) ahead of him in the national team.
Mbappé is set to be reunited in attack with PSG forward Ousmane Dembélé, the French league’s top scorer.
Both have already reached 30 goals overall this season, but while Mbappé did so for the seventh time in a row, the newly prolific Dembélé managed it for the first time.
“He’s another string to our bow,” Mbappé said of Dembélé, who is also a close friend. “When you see his current form it gives us even more options, it makes us even more unpredictable for the opponent.”
He relishes the prospect of facing the Croats together.
“We just need to combine properly,” Mbappé said. “But we know each other off by heart and we want to play together.”
Dembélé has a lot of catching up to do, however, with just six international goals in 53 games.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe gestures to the supporters at the end of a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Villarreal and Real Madrid in Villarreal, Spain, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)
Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Villarreal and Real Madrid in Villarreal, Spain, Saturday, March 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Independents have grown increasingly unhappy with President Donald Trump during his second term, a new AP-NORC polling analysis finds, particularly those without a college degree.
The analysis from researchers at The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that while about half of independents without a college education had a positive view of Trump around the 2024 election, his approval with that group fell to about one-quarter this spring. That shift has erased the large education gap that existed among independents in the months before Trump took office for his second term, with independents now holding similarly negative views of the president regardless of their level of education.
The analysis was conducted by aggregating nearly two dozen AP-NORC polls conducted between July 2024 and April 2026, allowing for a deeper look at how support for Trump changed during several distinct periods, including the last six months of 2024, the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, the summer of 2025 when the Big Beautiful Bill passed, last fall's government shutdown and the beginning of the Iran war.
The compiled polling shows a steady decline among independents throughout Trump’s second term. His standing has also dropped among several small but important groups that moved toward him in the 2024 presidential election, including Black and Hispanic independents.
More Americans than ever consider themselves independents, and they are among the groups that shifted toward Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Any erosion in that support could signal trouble for Trump and Republicans headed into the midterm elections, which are often seen as reflection of how voters feel about their governing party.
Tafari Torres, a senior research associate at NORC who co-authored the analysis, noted that while Democrats' and Republicans' views of Trump have held largely steady in his second term, independents' opinions are still moving. “Independents are, broadly, the people who are reacting to the events and dropping in their support,” he said.
Trump's return to the White House was fueled, in part, by independent voters who saw him as the stronger candidate on key issues like the economy. The new analysis, which looks at Trump's favorability and presidential approval ratings, shows that once he took the helm, their views soured quickly.
Independents without a college degree had a much more positive view of Trump than college-educated independents did during and just after the 2024 election, but that shifted in the first few months of his term. Positive views of Trump among independents without a college degree fell from 48% in the months before he returned to office to 31% in polling conducted during Trump’s first 100 days back in office. Those warm views declined even further, to about one-quarter, during the government shutdown and the early months of 2026.
Only about 3 in 10 college-educated independents, by contrast, had a positive view of Trump before he returned to office, making their drop to about one-quarter much less dramatic.
“The decline among no-college independents was steeper and it was greater than the slight decline in college independents," said Sean Collins, a research associate at NORC who co-authored the analysis. "That was surprising, especially given, when you think of Trump's coalitions, those without college degrees is usually one of the ones that that stands out.”
Americans without a college degree have long been a key part of Trump's coalition. But Trump also won in 2024 by making gains among groups that tend to support Democrats, including Hispanic adults.
About 4 in 10 independent voters — 42% — voted for Trump in 2024, up from 37% in the 2020 presidential election. Independent voters without a college degree were a little more likely to back Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election, according to AP VoteCast, and Hispanic independents were about evenly split between the two.
The picture looks much bleaker for the president now.
Nearly half of Hispanic independents — 46% — saw Trump favorably in the polling conducted around the presidential election. His approval among these adults dropped quickly in his second term, falling as low as 15% during last fall's government shutdown before landing around one-quarter in the spring.
Younger independents also became less supportive of the president, while independents age 60 and older remained mostly stable. Other AP-NORC polling has pointed to Trump losing ground among younger Republicans over inflation concerns and Hispanic Americans growing increasingly discontented.
“The gains Trump appeared to make during the election, I don’t know if they’re sticking around. He’s experienced some significant shifts among those people,” Torres said. “From our research, they don’t appear to be permanent gains.”
Polling suggests that the economy is at the root of many Americans' frustrations with Trump, including independents.
About half of independents who supported Trump in 2024 said inflation was the single most important factor for their vote, AP VoteCast found, and most expressed high levels of concern about the cost of food and gas.
More than a year into Trump's second term, inflation remains high, fueled by gas prices that remain elevated as the Iran war continues. An AP-NORC poll conducted in April found that about 3 in 10 independents were “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to afford groceries in the last few months, and a similar share were worried about being able to afford gas.
The analysis found that Americans' views of the U.S. economy tend to align with their view of the president. Those with negative views of the country's economy tended to have negative views of Trump, and about 8 in 10 independents described the U.S. economy this spring as poor.
The latest AP-NORC polling from May found that only about 3 in 10 independents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, in line with the roughly 3 in 10 who said that at the beginning of his second term. The April poll found only about 1 in 10 independents — 12% — approved of how Trump was handling the cost of living.
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This AP-NORC analysis of 4,836 independents was conducted over 21 AP-NORC surveys, blocked into five time periods before and during President Donald Trump's second term. Independents are classified as panelists who do not select that they identify with or lean toward either the Democratic or Republican Party.
FILE - Voters stand in line outside a polling place at Madison Church, Nov. 5, 2024, in Phoenix, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)
FILE - An American flag flies in the wind as a voter leaves a polling site after casting a ballot on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/David Goldman, file)
FILE - A man wears an "I voted" sticker on his shirt, printed with the American flag and the U.S. constitution, after voting at Wa-Ke Hatchee Recreation Center in Fort Myers, Fla, on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
