Sometimes you can telegraph exactly what’s going to happen in any given game of football. Other times, however, things don’t go to plan – and yesterday Kylian Mbappe tore up the script when he outshone both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo on a day which saw the two greatest players in world football crash out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Sure, it wasn’t pretty at times and sure, he’s still got a long way to go, but at just 19 years of age, it’s hardly difficult to see why people are rating the Frenchman so highly.

He has a certain level of composure on the ball that is always nice to see in a forward, and he just feels incredibly fearless in everything that he does. The weight of his current situation doesn’t seem to be impacting him at all, and with Uruguay coming up in just a few days time, we have to consider the possibility of him being the next big thing if he can do it all over again.

Alas, two of the biggest names in this story aren’t even in the World Cup anymore: and we are, of course, talking about Lionel Messi & Cristiano Ronaldo. While CR7 had his own issues to deal with throughout the course of the game against Uruguay, Argentina were pouring forward at will against France before they were eventually put out of their misery by the Europeans.

This latest setback will be particularly painful for Messi, too, as he’s still never won an international trophy with Argentina despite his overwhelming success when it comes to silverware with Barcelona. There’s an argument to be made that the duo will continue to play out their 30s at the highest level in Qatar, meaning that we may not have seen the last of them quite yet – although at least Ronaldo has a winners’ medal from Portugal’s unlikely triumph in the 2016 European Championships.

There are a lot of hyperbolic messages and stories that we’ve read over the last little while, but let’s face it, Messi’s legacy as a professional is tarnished if he’s never able to win the big one. It’s not like he hasn’t come close, most notably four years ago in Brazil when they lost to Germany in the final.

But while Lionel and Cristiano can now rest and relax, the grind never stops for one man: Kylian Mbappe. The youngster has been preparing harder than most for the World Cup this summer, and you can see that hard work paying off on the pitch. He’s strong and he’s effective, and we may be seeing the dawning of the next Thierry Henry.

World Cup Betting

France vs Uruguay is going to be an absolutely amazing game, and if you don’t believe in that theory then we’re highly disappointed. The French will want to come flying out of the blocks once again, and courtesy of momentum, we feel like Mbappe could get the ball in or around the six-yard box whereby he could do some serious damage.

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