Sight for sore eyes
Zidane praises Mbappe, Haaland for superb show against Real’s top rivals
BARCELONA: Zinedine Zidane liked what he saw when Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland ripped apart two of his team’s top rivals in Spain this week.
Mbappe scored a hattrick as Paris St Germain trounced Barcelona at the Nou Camp on Tuesday. A day later Halland netted a double to lead Borussia Dortmund to a 3-2 win at Sevilla’s Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium.
And Zidane was watching with his team waiting to start their Champions League round-of-16 tie with Atalanta the following week.
“They are both very good players, like Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar ... they are younger and what they are doing shows they are players of the present and the future,” Zidane said about the two young scorers on Friday.
On Mbappe’s game against Barcelona, Zidane said: “His performance was marvellous, and I liked what he did because we know each other. I watched the game as a fan and I enjoyed how wonderfully he played.”
Mbappe’s contract with PSG expires this summer. Last month, he said that he was “thinking it over” on whether to sign another deal with the French powerhouse or make a move to another top European club like Real.
Mbappe, 22, and Haaland, 20, both feature in the rumour mill surrounding Real’s plans for next summer.
Real, however, like all of football have taken an economic hit from the pandemic.
But Real president Florentino Pérez is no longer a dominant force in the transfer market, particularly after the rise of PSG and Manchester City. That makes Haaland perhaps an easier player to lure away from the more modest Dortmund, a club that unlike PSG are accustomed to selling their top talents.
Real’s leading scorer, Karim Benzema, is 33 years old. The club have not been able to provide Zidane with a reliable backup, so the position of striker is a need Real will likely address in the near future.
“We all work together when it comes to signing players – the club, the coach and the people who work on this,” Zidane said about the upcoming offseason. “There is a lot of information and there are a lot rumours and that is not going to change until the end of the season.”