Kylian Mbappe Photo: VCG

When it comes to penalty shootouts there always has to be a fall guy.

In the European Championship knockout match between France and Switzerland, the fall guy was unexpected.

France and Paris St-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe stepped up with the score 5-4 to the Swiss after nine penalties. His spot kick was saved by Switzerland keeper Jurgen Sommer and France - many pundits' pre-tournament favorites to lift the trophy - were out.

It really was not meant to be this way. Indeed, with an ageing Cristiano Ronaldo and so few players stepping up to the level reached by the Portuguese and Argentina's Lionel Messi, Mbappe was meant to be the star of this tournament. He was being spoken of as the next winner of the Ballon d'Or.

He scored 42 goals and laid on 11 assists for his club in just 47 matches last season, his most productive yet.

That did not translate into form for France at the Euros where he failed to score in four games for Les Bleus.

Mbappe stepped up again after missing his vital penalty, this time to apologize to France fans.

"I'm sorry about this penalty. I wanted to help the team but I failed," Mbappe wrote on his official Instagram and Twitter accounts in the aftermath of the game.

"It's going to be hard to sleep after this, but unfortunately these are the ups and downs of this sport that I love so much.

"The most important [thing] will be to get back up again even stronger for future commitments. Congratulations and good luck to the Swiss team."

His own teammates offered their commiserations and support to the player who is expected to be France's talisman for many tournaments to come.

"We win together, we lose together," said France skipper Hugo Lloris, the goalkeeper who had been beaten five times in the shootout but kept the world champions in the game with a save from the spot in normal time.

"We are all responsible for being eliminated at this stage of the competition. There is no pointing fingers."

France boss Didier Deschamps decided to support the young striker after France's penalty heartbreak.

"Nobody can be annoyed with him," Deschamps said. "When you take the responsibility, it can happen. He is obviously very affected by it.

"Of course Kylian, even if he didn't score a goal [in Euro 2020], he was decisive in many actions that we had, then he took the responsibility to take this penalty and no one is really angry with him. 

"I talked to the players, we know the strength of this squad, of this team, we had many magnificent moments together today."

France, with Mbappe in his breakout first major international tournament, won the last FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018. The 22-year-old did not match the heights of three summers ago at Euro 2020 this summer.

Still, the view is that Mbappe is destined to be one of the game's greats and it was arguably the greatest to play the game who was among the first to tell him not to be dismayed by what happened.

"Keep your head up, Kylian!" wrote Pele on Twitter. "Tomorrow is the first day of a new journey."

Gary Neville was another to offer his support to the striker. "You just knew as Mbappe was walking up, you just thought, 'Oh no,'" Neville said on British broadcaster ITV Sport.

"I said just before extra time I thought he would turn up. He had a couple of moments in extra time and you just felt, 'This has not gone well for him at all.'

"He has aspirations to be the greatest player in the world, like Cristiano and Lionel Messi.

"This is a little bump in the road for him, but a massive test for him in the next few weeks. He'll come through it.

"He's having a tough time, obviously in this tournament and it's a tough one for him to take, and the French team."

Other pundits, namely Neville's former Manchester United teammate Roy Keane who was also working for ITV, gave credit to Sommer.

"We're saying it's a miss, but it's a great save. An absolutely brilliant save," Keane said.

"We talk about the pressure, technique. He's hit it pretty well, but he guesses the right way and we see his foot just on the line.

"We talk about the importance of scoring, but the goalkeeper, huge moment."

It will probably not be remembered as that, we will see?

Others had already called out Mbappe's ego as the problem in the France setup. That was the view of former Monaco player Jerome Rothen.

There have been questions all season, if not longer.

"Apart from the problems related to his physique and possibly his mind, I have the impression that he has become entangled in his brain and that he needs to take a step back and regenerate himself," former France midfielder Emmanuel Petit told broadcaster RMC in January.

"He has a body expression that doesn't seem positive to me. I have the feeling that he is 'Neymarised', that he wants to do what Neymar does on the pitch when he does not have the qualities of Neymar at all."

Former France striker Christophe Dugarry had brought up the specter of Neymar - and Mbappe being "Neymarised" - back in 2019.

"I'm afraid that the dream will break with this boy," Dugarry said. "I feel that things could turn quickly."

It seems public opinion may have turned though there are many backing Mbappe to turn it around.