It’s always a little tempting to get sucked into the hoopla of football’s melodrama, but this week really did feel like the birth of a new era.
Kylian Mbappe and Erling Braut Haaland scored five goals in two Champions League matches, hauling their clubs from early deficit to commanding first leg positions away from home. Add their ages together and they would still be four months younger than Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.
After Dortmund’s 3-2 win in Seville, Haaland was asked if there was any added motivation for him to score after Mbappe’s hat-trick. It was one of those throwaway questions, asked without hope or expectation (particularly given Haaland’s tendency to be abrupt with his answers). But it struck gold.
“When I saw Mbappe score the hat-trick, I got free motivation, so thanks to him,” Haaland said. “He scored some nice goals and I got a free boost from him, so it was nice.” Cue the predictable – and understandable – media frenzy.
“Are Haaland and Mbappe better than Messi and Ronaldo?’ read one of many similar headlines.”
You can see why Haaland and Mbappe fit the bill. Transfermarkt lists Mbappe as the most valuable player in the world with Haaland seventh and rising.
Mbappe plays the Messi character, all pace and control and skill and more pace, the playground footballer of your dreams.
Haaland is your Cristiano Ronaldo, a physical freak with a jawline that could crack walnuts. He is half a foot taller than Mbappe and has a far greater physical strength, more playground bully than lunch-break goalscorer.
If an artist were designing the Next Big Thing, he might sketch Mbappe. If a scientist did the same, Haaland would surely be the model.
More so than their separate super-talents, it was the coexistence of Messi and Ronaldo’s greatness that was most extraordinary. I have no interest in ranking them against each other or anyone else, but let’s just conclude that two of the greatest players of all time happened to have careers that almost entirely overlapped.
Ferenc Puskas, Pelé, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona and Ronaldo (or Zinedine Zidane, if that’s your jam) may have all laid claim to the best in the world at one time or another, but none of them ever played in the same World Cup as another; Messi and Ronaldo have played in the same four. If their individual superstardom was self-propelled, the rivalry and their concurrence subsequently fuelled it.
As the Messi and Ronaldo era draws to a long close, it provokes two antithetical trains of thought. Either their standards make it impossible for anyone following them to compare, creating a chasm. Or, they opened our minds to individual brilliance in team sport and thus created not a chasm but a space, an opportunity. If the second theory rings true, that is the space into which Mbappe and Haaland are likely to be thrust.
A rivalry would increase the marketability of both players, an economic symbiosis manufactured by a million more social media clips and memes. How we consume football changed with the age of the internet and social media. With it came a universality of opinion and the ability to both share and argue that opinion. It also created a strange obsession with ranking everything and an extremism of attitude that really did make second the first loser.
In the case of Messi and Ronaldo, the rivalry extended beyond the norm because of where they played. They were the poster-children of Barcelona and Real Madrid, two pillars of modern (and historic) European football. Combine the tribalism of that rivalry with social media and battle lines were drawn. Those two players became defined by their comparisons with the other. More than anyone else (and through little fault of their own), they forged a distinct brand of tribalism in which supporters gave their loyalty to a player rather than a club.
That level of extreme discourse might not happen with Mbappe and Haaland; it depends upon their careers. Haaland is likely to move abroad in summer 2022 (his reported €75m release clause kicks in then) and Real Madrid would be a likely suitor.
But Mbappe is already at the top of the world: he has won the World Cup and is Paris Saint-Germain’s third highest scorer of all time having moved for £180m. Mbappe is playing for his hometown club who happen to have multi-billionaire owners. It would take a transfer fee that in a Covid-19-affected financial climate may not be achievable for many.
Perhaps that’s to be celebrated. On Tuesday, we watched Mbappe become the first player to score a Champions League hat-trick against Barcelona in 24 years, and the youngest ever. On Wednesday we witnessed Haaland become the second youngest player to reach 10 European Cup goals (and yes, if you insist, Mbappe was the youngest).
Rather than feel the need to club them together in a plastic rivalry that only serves to fuel online arguments, why not just leave them as two autonomous wunderkinds that can platform the next generation of super footballer and fill the colossal void that those before them will leave behind?
Daniel Storey’s i football column is published in print and online on Friday mornings. You can follow him on Twitter @danielstorey85
More from Daniel Storey
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- Project ‘Bigger’ Picture: An alternative vision for the future of English football
- Liverpool have become complacent and Klopp has to find the root cause
- The FA should punish Covid rule-breakers – apologies are not enough
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