Kylian Mbappé scores on debut for Real Madrid in a 2-0 win over Atalanta in UEFA Super Cup

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A goal and a trophy. How about that for a debut by Kylian Mbappé for Real Madrid?

The France captain pulled on the famous white jersey of the Spanish champions for the first time in a competitive match and marked the occasion with the second goal in a 2-0 win over Atalanta in the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday.

Mbappé, who started and played 82 minutes at the National Stadium in Warsaw, met a pass from Jude Bellingham across the area with a shot into the top corner in the 68th minute.

“He is inevitable," Bellingham said of Mbappé.

“It’s a big step for him – people have been talking about him coming here for a long time — and it feels like he’s been here for a while."

After putting both arms across his chest for his trademark celebration, Mbappé was congratulated by Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo, the other members of Madrid’s star-studded strike force that might be sending tremors around European soccer heading into the new season.

Federico Valverde tapped home a cross from Vinícius in the 59th to set Madrid on its way to a record sixth victory in the Super Cup, the annual match between the Champions League winners (Madrid) and the Europa League champions (Atalanta).

Madrid is used to holding records — no team has more European Cup titles than its 15 — and owning the world’s best players.

Mbappé certainly belongs in that category and it was a strong start to life at the world’s top soccer club, one he dreamt of playing for as a kid before fulfilling that reality by moving from Paris Saint-Germain after a drawn-out saga.

Now he is Madrid’s No. 9 and started the Super Cup as the team’s central striker — to limited success, aside from a couple of spins and tricks that wowed the crowd in the first half — before moving out wide for the second half to greater effect.

“We have a new-look team and it seemed to just click tonight,” Bellingham said. “Sometimes it takes a bit of time – the first half we were still adjusting — and the second half it all came together and we were brilliant.”

Vinícius and Bellingham, stars of Madrid’s run to the Champions League and La Liga titles last season, were the game’s standout players, however, as Carlo Ancelotti’s team eventually overpowered Atalanta after an even first half that saw both sides hit the crossbar.

Madrid defender Eder Militao deflected a cross onto his own bar before Rodrygo fired in a shot just before halftime that struck the top of the bar.

“At one point, the game was within our reach," Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini said.

Atalanta almost took the lead early in the second half when Mario Pašalić had a header tipped aside by goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois but Madrid was dominant thereafter, with Vinícius operating more down the middle.

It might take a while for Ancelotti to find the ideal formula up front — Brazil striker Endrick, a summer signing like Mbappé, didn’t even come off the bench for the match — but it’s an enviable dilemma for the Italian coach.

“The most difficult thing, what we are looking for, is finding balance in the team with the quality we have up front,” Ancelotti said. “If we are able to do this, we can have a very good season. We have a fantastic squad, to be honest."

Luka Modric, the 38-year-old Croatia great who was one of five second-half substitutes for Madrid, lifted the trophy high to a backdrop of gold confetti as Mbappé danced and led the celebrations beside him — before getting his hands on the hardware himself.

“I thought he (Mbappé) was amazing before and now you get a chance to play with him, you see the details up closer — the speed, the quality, the work without the ball, the way he is as a leader, the way he communicates,” Bellingham said. “I can't speak highly enough of him really.”

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Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe touches the trophy during the medal ceremony for the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's team members celebrate with the trophy as they won the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's team members celebrate with the trophy as they won the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's Eder Militao, Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, and Luka Modric pose with the trophy after winning the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. Real Madrid won 2-0. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe touches the trophy during the medal ceremony for the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's head coach Carlo Ancelotti, center, speaks with his player Arda Guler at the end of the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. Real Madrid won 2-0. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Real Madrid's Luka Modric lifts the trophy after winning the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. Real Madrid won 2-0. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, right, celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's Federico Valverde, centre, celebrates with Kylian Mbappe after scoring the opening goal during the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, 2nd left, scores his side's second goal during the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, centre, celebrates with teammates after scoring his side's second goal during the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, second from right, celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Real Madrid's fans cheer before the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's fan holds a portrait of Kylian Mbappe before the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe applauds fans as he takes a walk on the pitch ahead of the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Real Madrid's Aurelien Tchouameni walks on to the pitch for warmup before the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe warms up before the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

The trophy is displayed on the pitch ahead of the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe warms up before the UEFA Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atalanta at the Narodowy stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

LONDON (AP) — With banners, bullhorns, toy tractors and an angry message, British farmers descended on Parliament on Tuesday to protest a hike in inheritance tax that they say will deal a “hammer blow” to struggling family farms.

U.K. farmers are rarely as militant as their European neighbors, and Britain has not seen large-scale protests like those that have snarled cities in France and other European countries. Now, though, farmers say they will step up their action if the government doesn’t listen.

“Everyone’s mad,” said Olly Harrison, co-organizer of a protest that aims to flood the street outside Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office with farmers. He said many famers “want to take to the streets and block roads and go full French.”

Organizers have urged protesters not to bring farm machinery into central London on Tuesday. Instead, children on toy tractors will lead a march around Parliament Square after a rally addressed by speakers including former “Top Gear” TV host and celebrity farmer Jeremy Clarkson. Another 1,800 farmers held a “mass lobby” of lawmakers nearby organized by the National Farmers’ Union.

“The human impact of this policy is simply not acceptable, it’s wrong," NFU President Tom Bradshaw told farmers gathered for the mass lobby. “It’s kicking the legs out from under British food security."

Volatile weather exacerbated by climate change, global instability and the upheaval caused by Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union have all added to the burden on U.K. farmers. Many feel the Labour Party government’s tax change, part of an effort to raise billions of pounds to fund public services, is the last straw.

“Four out of the last five years, we’ve lost money,” said Harrison, who grows cereal crops on his family farm near Liverpool in northwest England. “The only thing that’s kept me going is doing it for my kids. And maybe a little bit of appreciation on the land allows you to keep borrowing, to keep going. But now that’s just disappeared overnight.”

The flashpoint is the government’s decision in its budget last month to scrap a tax break dating from the 1990s that exempts agricultural property from inheritance tax. From April 2026, farms worth more than 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) face a 20% tax when the owner dies and they are passed on to the next generation. That is half the 40% inheritance tax rate levied on other land and property in the U.K.

Starmer’s center-left government says the “vast majority” of farms -– about 75% -- will not be affected, and various loopholes mean that a farming couple can pass on an estate worth up to 3 million pounds ($3.9 million) to their children free of tax.

Supporters of the tax say it will recoup money from wealthy people who have bought up agricultural land as an investment, driving up the cost of farmland in the process.

“It’s become the most effective way for the super rich to avoid paying their inheritance tax,” Environment Secretary Steve Reed wrote in the Daily Telegraph, adding that high land prices were “robbing young farmers of the dream of owning their own farm.”

But the famers’ union says more than 60% of working farms could face a tax hit. And while farms may be worth a lot on paper, profits are often small. Government figures show that income for most types of farms fell in the year to the end of February 2024, in some cases by more than 70%. Average farm income ranged from about 17,000 pounds ($21,000) for grazing livestock farms to 143,000 pounds ($180,000) for specialist poultry farms.

The last decade has been turbulent for British farmers. Many farmers backed Brexit as a chance to get out of the EU’s complex and much-criticized Common Agricultural Policy. Since then, the U.K. has brought in changes such as paying farmers to restore nature and promote biodiversity, as well as for producing food.

Some farmers have welcomed those moves, but many feel goodwill was squandered through missteps by successive governments, a failure of subsidies to keep up with inflation, and new trade deals with countries including Australia and New Zealand that have opened the door to cheap imports.

National Farmers’ Union Deputy President David Exwood said the tax hike was “the final straw in a succession of tough choices and difficult situations that farmers have had to deal with.”

The government has “completely blown their trust with the industry,” he said.

The government insists it will not reconsider the inheritance tax, and its political opponents see an opportunity. The main opposition Conservative Party -– which was in government for 14 years until July -- and the hard-right populist party Reform U.K. are both championing the farmers. Some far-right groups also have backed Tuesday’s protest, though the organizers are not affiliated with them.

Harrison says the demonstration is intended as “a show of unity to the government” and an attempt to inform the public “that farmers are food producers, not tax-dodging millionaires.”

“It’s every single sector, whether you’re a landowner or a tenant, whether you’re beef, dairy, milk, cereals, veg, lettuce -- you name it, everyone has had a hammer blow from this," he said. “Every farmer is losing.”

Britain's Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, center, speaks with religious leaders during a breakfast roundtable meeting for faith leaders as part of Inter Faith Week at 10 Downing Street, in London, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Airbus in Broughton, North Wales, Friday Nov. 15, 2024. (Danny Lawson/Pool via AP)