FIFA World Cup: Club teammates Messi, Mbappe headline biggest face-off in football

For Kylian Mbappe, it was never Lionel Messi. The group that fired up his imagination, as a restless teenager growing up in the banlieue of Bondy where blares a mural of the French forward with the line “a place of possibilities”, were always the galacticos. In his comic-strip autobiography Je M’Appelle Kylian, Zinedine Zidane and Criano Ronaldo visit him in a dream, and Zidane hands him out a sparkling- white kit of Real Madrid. He plays keepie-uppie in it.
In school, when a teacher asks him about his best friends, Mbappe ls out the names Ronaldo, Zidane and Sergio Ramos. Later, in interviews, when probed on who he wants to be, it has always been Ronaldo and Zidane.
“If you’re French, obviously you would have grown up with [Zinedine] Zidane as your idol. After that, it was Criano,” he would say. He admires Messi as well — recently, he called him the best player in the world — but he idolises Ronaldo more. He is his idol, his inspiration, his yardstick.
A young Mbappe had posters of Criano Ronaldo in his room. (AP)
For Messi, it was never Mbappe either. It was always Neymar, his brother, the player he wanted to inherit his throne at Barcelona, the first opinion he sought when he knew his Barcelona separation was inevitable. Even after Neymar’s departure from Catalonia to Paris, he pushed for his return to Barcelona. “The truth is, I would have loved him to come back to us. I understand some people were against it and that’s normal considering everything that happened and how he left us, but thinking about it on a sporting level, for me Neymar is the best player in the world,” Messi would say months before he joined Neymar and Mbappe at PSG.  Not that Messi was reluctant to acknowledge Mbappe’s talent — recently he called him the future of football — but for him, it was always Neymar: the brother, the comrade, the heir.Subscriber Only StoriesPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
But this World Cup — even the last World Cup — it has been about Mbappe and Messi, two great players at the opposing spectrums of their careers. One is like the setting sun, shining brightly before slipping over the horizon, his immortality twinkling eternally in the footballing skies. The other is like the forenoon sun, scorching and blazing, risen but not yet leapt into the immortal skies. Not dant is the day that the forenoon sun would replace the setting sun. But before that, they would encounter each other, ready to dazzle each other, ready to measure each other’s brightness, ready to burn in each other’s light.
Battle within a battle
Whatever happens in the final, whatever doesn’t happen in the final, whoever scores or asss, whoever doesn’t, the narrative of the tournament-deciding match would be woven around them. One would be the hero; the other a fallen hero; one would shed tears of joy and the other tears of agony; one would win the Golden Boot, the other wouldn’t. Both are tied on five goals. Argentina’s manager Lionel Scaloni would be preparing to answer the question that he would be asked most frequently in the pre-final press conference: “What are your plans to stop Mbappe?” From the French media, Spanish press, global media. Similarly, Didier Deschamps would be barraged with “How to stop Messi?” questions. Questions framed differently but with the same crux.
Before the pre-quarterfinal fixture in Russia, the question irritated him. He winced and grimaced, before France captain Hugo Lloris made them furrow their brows with a one-liner: “Argentina have Messi; but we have Mbappe.”

Many wondered at the evident hyperbole. Mbappe was just  18 then, a left-winged wonder yet to blossom, loaned out to PSG from Monaco. Messi, the emperor of all he surveyed but the field of the World Cup. It would have been blasphemous to whisper their names in the same sentence, forgetting pitting them against each other. Lloris êtes-vous fou? Are you mad, Lloris?
He was not. Mbappe chose that match of all to soar into the collective consciousness of football. Here was a footballing phenom in the making — a divine blend of speed, skill, power and heart. The world stood marvelled — he would go on to win the World Cup, PSG would make his loan deal permanent, and hike his salary four-fold.
The age of Mbappe would rise, just as the era of Messi would fade. Messi cut a forlorn and dejected silhouette in the match. Perhaps he would never rise. To the photograph of them shaking hands was rendered a touch of symbolism, a moment when legacy and inheritance were changing hands.
Except that the narrative did not unfold quite the same way. Mbappe scaled one peak after another, became the world’s highest-paid footballer, bettering Messi, and became an industry himself. But Messi did not slink into an alley of darkness. He re-emerged, repurposed and re-calibrated and retraced the steps of immortality. Their lines of destinies were to criss-cross each other. Both would orchestrate each other’s routs in the Champions League.
Then in a remarkable tw of events, they became colleagues and collaborators after a protracted transfer saga. That mad summer window, Messi was forced to move away from Barcelona to PSG, tearfully; that mad summer, Mbappe was forced to stay at PSG, fitfully.
Collaborators, rivals
It was the dream forward-line. Neymar-Mbappe-Messi. The trio did not produce instant magic though, rather sporadic bursts of promise. The press hounded them like vultures for a stray sound-bite of uneasiness. When Mbappe said he is liberated to wear the shirt of France, for he could play in his preferred central role, it was misconstrued as a veiled dig at Messi. It was not though, rather it was Messi dropping deep into the midfield to make room for Mbappe and Neymar. There were rumours that Mbappe was jealous of the attention Messi was gathering, which he rubbished.
Some of Mbappe’s statements were taken out of context too. Like this one. When he was asked about the Ballon d’Or, Mbappe said: “I always say I dream about everything. I have no limits. So of course, like you say, it’s a new generation. And Ronaldo, Messi — you’re gonna stop. We have to find someone else, someone new.”
It was twed as Mbappe hinting that Messi and Ronaldo were getting older, their days are over and his had just begun. Messi, certainly, has been more guarded in his comments, though in almost every press conference, he would be asked about his chemry with Mbappe.

“Kylian is a different player, a beast who is very strong in one-on-one, who goes into space, who is very fast, who scores a lot of goals,” Messi told TUDN Mexico earlier this year. “He is a complete player and he has proved it for years, and in the years to come, he will certainly be among the best.”
Their destinies cross each other again, at the Lusail Iconic Stadium. But plotting against each other, measuring themselves against each other, seeing the game through the talismans of the teams, is purely missing the larger picture. That is enjoying the separate thrills they bring; in fact, the contrasting joys they bless football with.
Mbappe is pure speed, though he is not just speed alone. He makes the heart beat faster, eyes roll quicker and transforms an irresible energy into you, like when you attend a rock concert.
Watching Messi is akin to lening to a jazz concert, with its soul-melting improvised solos, an immersive viewing experience, filling your mind with joy and peace, bringing a certain meaning to your life.
To paint them as rivals is to miss the joy of watching football.
But again this Sunday, it will be about Messi and Mbappe. Whether exchanging shirts or legacies or inheritances, crowns or thrones, though for Messi it was never Mbappe and for Mbappe it was never Messi.