Future gladiators
Dortmund teen Haaland goes head-to-head with PSG star Mbappe
A Tjust 21, Kylian Mbappe is already a World Cup winner while at only 19, Erling Braut Haaland has emerged as a rising fast-star this season.
As Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi approach the end of their careers, could Mbappe and Haaland be the next duo to dominate football?
AFP Sport looks at the star forwards who meet when Haaland’s Borussia Dortmund host Mbappe’s Paris Saint-Germain in tomorrow’s (4am Malaysian
time) Champions League last 16, first leg, tie.
Erling Braut Haaland
Haaland had barely arrived last month in Dortmund when the records started tumbling.
He justified the €20 million (RM90m) Dortmund paid Salzburg by becoming the first player to score a hattrick on his Bundesliga debut.
Having scored 28 goals in 22 games for Salzburg, including eight in this season’s Champions League group stage, Haaland picked up in Germany where he left off in Austria.
His attitude also impresses his new teammates.
“When a young player has been so hyped, with everyone saying how good he is, then he can be a difficult person,” said goalkeeper Roman Buerki.
“But he is a really cool guy, very professional.
“I’m one of the first at training
– but he’s always there earlier.”
Haaland sees Mbappe as a role model.
“When I was in Salzburg, I started scoring goals, but I look at Kylian Mbappe banging in Ligue 1 goals, so you can always reach a higher level,” Haaland told Bundesliga.com. Kylian Mbappe
For a player who turned 21 in December, Mbappe’s achievement’s are astonishing.
The World Cup winner is also
France’s reigning player of the year and has won three Ligue 1 titles with two different clubs.
Mbappe recently reached a century of club goals, and his 19 in the Champions
League is a record for a player before his
21st birthday.
The second youngest player to score in a World Cup final after Pele, Mbappe hit double figures for Champions League goals before he had even turned 19.
By that time he had already become the second most expensive player in football history when PSG signed him from Monaco for a total reported fee of €180 million (RM810m).
Mbappe has been to Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park before. He scored twice when Monaco drew 3-3 there in the 2017 Champions League quarterfinals.
He scored another in the return leg as Monaco advanced to the last four.
At that time, he was the teenage sensation. Now, he is a World Cup winner and is PSG’s top scorer this season with 24 goals. – AFP