Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app<\/a><\/p>\nAlas, it didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n
Messi ensured his name appeared on the halo screen at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mbappe\u2019s flashed up at the Gillette Stadium\u2019s version and Argentina and France continued to track each other on opposite sides of the bracket. For now, the former Paris Saint-Germain team-mates remain on a collision course to meet in the final, as happened at the previous World Cup four years ago, when Mbappe scored a hat-trick yet, somehow, Messi prevailed.<\/p>\n
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\u201cLeo always scores. He always has, he always will,\u201d Mbappe said. \u201cIf I focused on watching what Leo scores, I would have to work even harder. So no, I don\u2019t pay attention to what (Messi) does at all. I\u2019m only thinking about helping my team.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Mbappe did pay closer attention, he\u2019d notice that maybe they aren\u2019t so similar after all.<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s World Cup has largely been about high performance in chaos. Mbappe has, on the other hand, been able to operate in near-complete serenity. Everything, particularly since the knockout phase began, has looked hard for Argentina. For France, it has been the opposite. The World Cup has, by contrast, come much easier to them.<\/p>\n
Even if we go back to that remarkable Tuesday in June when both got their tournaments underway, Messi was portrayed as seeing what Mbappe and Erling Haaland did against Senegal and Iraq, and, to use a poker term, raising it by scoring a memorable hat-trick against Algeria. And yet he could have been sent off for a foul on Aissa Mandi when he\u2019s only netted once. Algeria even filed a formal complaint to FIFA. Messi got lucky. At the end of the game, he appeared to cry too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had some tough days,\u201d Messi said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t related to football. And those feelings were because of that.\u201d It later emerged his father, Jorge, is \u201cgoing through a health situation\u201d and is \u201ccurrently under medical supervision\u201d.<\/p>\n
Against Cape Verde in the round of 32, Messi brought the ball down in the box and, quite exquisitely, gave Argentina the lead. It looked like the game would be plain-sailing from there. Messi was back in Miami, his second home since a 2023 move to local MLS club Inter. It was anything but.<\/p>\n
Cape Verde kept coming back. They took the game to extra time and the world champions looked genuinely shaken when Sidny Lopes Cabral equalised again in the 103rd minute with arguably the goal of the tournament. In the end, a Diney Borges own goal was all that separated the two teams.<\/p>\n
In the next round, Egypt then pushed Argentina to the brink, too.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Cape Verde game, Messi and his team-mates found themselves behind. His penalty would have levelled the score at 1-1. When he missed, it only heightened the anxiety. His shooting was off. Until it wasn\u2019t. Two-nil down with 10 minutes to go, Messi crossed for Cristian Romero to head one back, smashed an equaliser in off the crossbar himself and then collapsed to the ground as Enzo Fernandez won it in the 93rd minute. Again, he burst into tears.<\/p>\n
France, on the other hand, have glided through to the quarter-finals like swans. They have not been taken to extra time. They have not conceded in three knockout games.<\/p>\n
Mbappe, granted, has not had it all easy. Paraguay tried to kick lumps out of him in the last 16. He has been subject to racial abuse from a Paraguayan senator. On the pitch, however, he has cut a peaceful figure.<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s the talent around him and knowing France have other players, such as Ousmane Dembele, the Ballon d’Or holder, who can step up, as he likes to do, seemingly, every time he plays in Foxboro. Maybe it’s the connection he has with Michael Olise. France, unlike Argentina, are a chance creation machine. They had 22 shots against Morocco<\/a> yesterday. There is always another opportunity.<\/p>\nSo when Mbappe missed his penalty, he did not appear fazed by it.\u00a0 “There were no doubts in the players’ heads or Kylian’s head,” Deschamps said afterwards.<\/p>\n
He found a way. He always does, curling a shot around Issa Diop and Bounou into the Morocco goal. It was the 20th of his career in the World Cup finals, a remarkable record given he has played in half as many editions of this tournament as Messi.<\/p>\n
There was a heart-in-mouth moment towards the end when Mbappe sank to the ground and signalled for a substitution. It was a precautionary measure, a minor ankle issue, as evidenced by how much he celebrated at full time. Mbappe danced. He jumped up and down, a flashbulb smile on his face. He did not seem anguished.<\/p>\n
Messi and Mbappe’s experiences of this World Cup are the same but different. Similar and divergent. And yet the desired outcome is shared. Both want a second World Cup.<\/p>\n
The way they are going about will hopefully continue to absorb us for at least another week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the World Cup holds up a mirror to Kylian Mbappe, it\u2019s as if he sees Lionel Messi.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[12910,64,63,2071,6257,126352,596,2592,18943,18944,13198,2020,85,6221],"class_list":["post-790887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-argentina","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-belgium","tag-champions-league","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-football","tag-france","tag-international-football","tag-ligue-1","tag-soccer","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}