-
Kylian Mbappe claims Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo ‘authored the history of football’ during a ‘great age’.
While downplaying a rivalry with Erling Haaland, Paris Saint-Germain sensation Kylian Mbappe praised the “eternal” team of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Many have predicted that the record-breaking forward for Manchester City will compete with the Frenchman in a similar long-term battle posed by two of the best players in the history of the sport.
The competition between Messi and Ronaldo has continued for almost 20 years, and discussions about the so-called GOAT are still going on today.
Mbappe, meanwhile, is eager to separate himself from comparisons to Haaland and chooses to acknowledge the “exceptional era” that Messi and Ronaldo contributed to instead.
La Gazzetta dello Sport asked whether the Mbappe-Haaland battle can match that held by two players who boast a combined 12 Ballons d’Or, the Frenchman replied: “Things should be read differently. It happens perhaps every fifty years or more to have two players like Messi and Ronaldo at such levels for so long. We lived through an exceptional era and I hope the fans took advantage of it.
I was lucky enough to play against Cristiano and then against and together with Leo: they are truly special. I learned a lot from them, especially with Messi in these two seasons. They wrote the history of football: they are eternal.”
The 24-year-old and Messi shared two “special” years at PSG, as Mbappe notes, but both players appear to be leaving the Parc des Princes this summer, albeit in different ways.
The Argentine star announced last week that he was moving to Major League Soccer with an extraordinary agreement to join Inter Miami. Mbappe’s future, meantime, is once again in limbo because PSG wants to cash in this summer, despite the fact that the World Cup winner from 2018 apparently wants to stay in Paris for just one more season.
The French capital appears to have another hectic transfer window in store, and Ronaldo’s situation in Saudi Arabia appears to be the same. While the Portuguese have seen Chelsea duo Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Hakim Ziyech linked with his present employers, Al-Nassr, a number of world superstars have already sealed deals to the Gulf state.