By Agency Report
The box-office head-to-head between Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe in tomorrow’s World Cup final is shaped by vividly contrasting personal experiences of the biggest game in football. For Mbappe the 2018 final in Russia held a dream-like quality. He scored, France won and everything fell into place; for Messi 2014 was the polar opposite.
Much has happened in the careers’ of both men since but those jarringly different mental images remain. For Messi, then as now Argentina’s totemic figure, the extra-time defeat to Germany was a crushing blow.
At 27, he was at the peak of his powers but, carrying the weight of a nation into that game it just never happened for him. His team fell short and so did he, missing a golden chance early in the second half when he was one on one with German ‘keeper Manuel Neuer.
He was crestfallen afterwards despite being awarded the tournament’s Golden Ball award for its best player.
“I don’t care about the prize. I don’t care about anything. Right now, nothing can console me – not the award or anything else,” said Messi. “I wanted to take Argentina to the World Cup for all the people. We’re disappointed not to have won this game. There’s a lot of anger.
“There is sadness to finish in this way, I think we deserved a little more. The better chances were ours and between the forwards we couldn’t take them.”
The game had meant everything to him – as he said ahead of it he would have swapped every individual prize he had won to be a world champion with Argentina. Maybe it had meant too much.
For Mbappe, in contrast, the showpiece game against Croatia four years ago felt like no big deal. As a carefree 19-year-old, he was no more nervous than for a French League game.
As he recalled ahead of the tournament in an interview for Qatar’s BeIN Sport, he just let the World Cup final happen.
“I was young so I didn’t realise. I was like: ‘I’m going to play’,” shrugged Mbappe. “Even when we won I was like: ‘OK, I take the World Cup in my hand’.
“I showed my family who were going crazy. Me, I was like; ‘OK, I take the picture. Everybody was happy. I was like: ‘OK let’s do a party after.’
“When you’re young you don’t think too much. You live your life. You enjoy. I enjoyed the moment with my teammates. It was only afterwards a few years later when I looked at the picture I said: ‘OK, I did this.’”
The innocence of youth has gone this time. He thinks more deeply these days, he admits. But Mbappe knows what works in a World Cup final for him.
If he can recapture some of that feeling of freedom tomorrow evening, he will be a lethal weapon for France.
For Messi that will be impossible. The backdrop of his last World Cup game and the now-or-never context heaps the pressure upon him once again. Even more perhaps this time.
While both men are critical, Argentina rely more on Messi than France do on Mbappe.
