When the teenaged Leo Messi, wearing a No. 19 shirt, scored his first World Cup goal in 2006 against Serbia and Montenegro, Kylian Mbappe was a seven-year old putting up posters of Zinedine Zidane in his little room in Bondy, a working-class northeastern suburb of Paris.
Mbappe dreamt of becoming a footballer one day, but little did he know that in 20 years’ time, he would be fighting Messi for the crown of the most-decorated international footballer of the 21st century. Messi, with four Champions League and seven Ballon D’Or titles in his kitty, is miles ahead of Mbappe in club football achievements. But when it comes to playing for the country, there’s an element of symmetry to the two careers.
Messi and Mbappe weren’t exactly meant to be rivals. There’s an age gap of 11 years between the two and as the Argentine’s closest competitor for large parts of his career was Cristiano Ronaldo, Mbappe’s fight for the crown of the ‘next big thing’ was with Erling Haaland. The fact that Mbappe and Messi spent a couple of years of their careers in the same club — Paris St Germain — should have made their equation something close to a guru and disciple.
But the script didn’t pan out that way. By the time Messi, after spending his best years in Barcelona, landed in PSG, Mbappe, as a lightning quick 18-year-old, had already run through Argentina in the 2018 World Cup, scoring twice, en route France’s title triumph. And ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when Mbappe, a self-confessed Ronaldo fan, took a dig at South American football, saying it was “not developed enough” compared to Europe, Messi didn’t take it well.
The genius didn’t say anything in public and kept the anger brewing, taking it all out when France met Argentina in arguably the greatest World Cup final of all time. Messi’s brace trumped Mbappe’s hat-trick, and the Latin American giants’ crazy celebrations, led by goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, made Mbappe look like a little boy whose candy had been stolen.
In the last four years, Messi and Mbappe have gone different ways. While the Argentine, at the fag end of his career, is enjoying the twilight at Inter Miami, Mbappe has chosen a more demanding Real Madrid route. Both have been the best players of their respective teams, but Messi’s 90 goals in 104 games for the American club leaves him in a better space than Mbappe.
The 27-year-old Mbappe has done what he was brought in to do in Real, scoring 87 goals in 95 games, but the club’s terrible drop in the last two years when they have gone trophyless has made life difficult for him. His lack of defensive contribution is one of the raging topics of discussion in world football, though that was never his forte. In addition, his reported not-too-comfortable relationship with some of his club mates is quite the opposite to Messi in Inter Miami, where he is surrounded by friends.
But things do change for Mbappe when he puts on the Les Bleus shirt. He is the revered captain of the team, but there’s no over-dependence on the winger-turned-centre forward. Even if Mbappe is unavailable for a game or two, France have a Ballon D’Or winner in Ousmane Dembele and a host of extremely versatile players to take care of the situation.
Argentina, too, have come a long way from their overarching Messi-dependence. With the likes of Julian Alvaraz, Enzo Fernandez, Nico Paz, Alexis MacAllister shaping up into terrific players in their own right has allowed Messi the respite to work on his magic dust. So, when the news of Messi’s muscle injury playing for Inter Miami came in last week, there wasn’t any world-is-fallingapart feeling for the global Argentina fan club.
Given the quality and current form of the Latin American giants, they should be there in the business end of the World Cup. So should France, who have been one of the most consistent European teams in the last eight years. And the football universe will hope that the two teams get to face each other one more time so that there’s a clear, final winner in this Mbappe-Messi duel — a proverbial clash of generations — a rivalry that hasn’t got as much traction as it should have had.
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