1. Is this the start of the end for Messi and Ronaldo?
It’s been beckoning for the past few years now, and I think it’s about time we have to accept that the era of Messi and Ronaldo is coming to an end.
Neither of them are the same force they once were – they can no longer drag their teams to glory all by themselves.
The last few years of the Champions League have proved this – Barcelona and Juventus have both struggled in Europe over the last few years – and Messi and Ronaldo have been more and more absent from the latter stages of the competition.
We can’t really hide from it anymore – Messi and Ronaldo have been on a steady decline for a while now, and with Kylian Mbappe scoring a hattrick against Messi at the Camp Nou and Erling Haaland taking the spotlight on a night where both him and Ronaldo were playing, it looks like this is the beginning of a new era for football.
Messi is clearly not happy at Barcelona, and it would not be a surprise to see him leave the Blaugrana this summer.
The days of the invincible Barca are long gone, and it really is a sad sight to see Messi trying to drag the whole club with next to no help.
A similar situation can be seen at Juventus, when until the first leg of the last 16 tie against Porto on the 17th February, Ronaldo had scored every single knockout goal in the Champions League for Juventus since 2018.
This dependence on a 35 year old to carry them through games will be frightening for Andrea Pirlo, who will need to find a way to win games as a team as opposed to always relying on the individual brilliance of an aging Ronaldo.
Even at the end of their careers, their teams are still relying on them to be the main talisman – in Messi’s case more so now than ever after the undisputed decline of Barcelona and the splitting up of the invincible trio of Messi-Suarez-Neymar.
In fact, the only thing that has shown us that the end is in sight for these two legends of the game is the very fact that the teams they turn out for still rely on them heavily – and it has become very noticeable that they simply can’t do it all by themselves anymore.
People will call Messi lazy, or that Ronaldo doesn’t get on the ball as much as he used to, but at the end of the day there are 10 other players on the team who also have to take some responsibility and chip in at some point.
2. Kylian Mbappe: The New King In Town
Kylian Mbappe has been around a while – it’s incredible to think that he’s still only 22 years of age!! He’s won a World Cup with France at age 19 – something that both Ronaldo and Messi are yet to do, however France did have an incredibly strong team in comparison to pretty much any other nation.
He has also won three Ligue 1 and two Coupe de France titles, winning the Ligue 1 top scorer twice. He’s certainly quite a good player – his pace and physique absolutely demolishes opposition defences in Ligue 1 and the Champions League – he went to the Camp Nou and scored a hattrick against Messi’s Barcelona, something symbolising almost a changing of the guard.
Mbappe is definitely the frontrunner at the moment to be at the pinnacle of the next generation of superstars.
It seems that in this new era of football, there will be a ton of high quality players but it is unlikely we will see a player on the same level as Messi and Ronaldo. Mbappe is one of the few players who could potentially break into that bracket.
Having now cemented his place as one of the best players in the world while playing in France for AS Monaco and now PSG, it is now a commonly held opinion that Mbappe needs to move to a more competitive league in order to improve his game further and establish himself as the true successor to Ronaldo and Messi.
It’s not us questioning his ability – we have seen that he can perform against the very best in the Champions League – it’s more the fact that if he wants to take his game to that next level then he needs to be playing against higher quality opposition week in week out in a league with a higher standard of football such as the Premier League or La Liga.
Mbappe has been linked repeatedly with teams like Liverpool and Real Madrid in recent times. But if anyone wants Mbappe’s signature, they will have to part with a lot of money to lure him away from PSG.
For a player of his quality and young age, paying that money would be worth it when you consider that he will most likely be at the top of the game for the next 10 years or so.
He has everything he needs to dominate the game for the next decade; he is physically very good and possesses lightning pace, his technical ability and ice-cold composure in the attacking third is insane for his age.
The one extra thing that will determine whether he will reach similar levels to Messi and Ronaldo is whether he has the desire and hunger to constantly be looking to get better even when he is at the top as well as how well he is able to maintain his level of play throughout his career.
We have seen many players be playing at an incredible level for a year or two, only to be unable to maintain it and fall off.
While these players still play to a very high standard, the mentality and desire to stay at that level with all the work that comes with it is ultimately what separates these players from the likes of Messi and Ronaldo, who have managed to stay at the top of the game for an insane period thanks to their relentless mentality and work ethic.
This is the last thing that Mbappe needs to become a superstar of world football, and only time will tell if he has it.
3. Erling Haaland: He surely can’t be human?
While Mbappe is leading the race for the best of the next generation, there are a number of players who could potentially spark an interesting rivalry over the years to come.
One of these players is Dortmund striker Erling Haaland, who has developed a reputation for his insane ability in front of goal.
His numbers for RB Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund are absolutely mind blowing for someone who has only just turned 20.
Haaland’s impressive numbers:
- 29 goals in 27 matches for RB Salzburg, including 8 goals in 6 games in the Champions League.
- 43 goals in 43 games for Borussia Dortmund, including 10 goals in 6 games in the Champions League this season.
As you can see, he’s quite a useful player to have in your team, and if you have other world class players around him these numbers will only improve.
He’s probably the closest challenger to Mbappe at the moment, and actually wins the battle in terms of just pure numbers because the role he plays within his team is purely to score as many goals as possible.
It is very hard to pinpoint a weakness in Haaland’s game, which is why he causes defenders so much trouble and grief.
He possesses ridiculous pace, insane physicality and his ability positionally and with the ball is also superb which has resulted in him being now recognised as one of the most dangerous goal machines in world football.
However, when we consider everything else (not just the numbers), Mbappe at this point in time is the better player in the technical sense and what he can do with the ball – while also still having very good numbers in terms of goal contributions.
Don’t get me wrong, you would absolutely love to have either of these players in your team, and it’s going to be incredible watching them play and develop over the next decade.
Both will undoubtedly develop into superstars in their own right, and with Messi’s and Ronaldo’s days at the summit of the game numbered, it will be very soon that they take centre stage, and with everyone looking at them expecting them to perform on the highest level we will finally see what these guys are truly made of – and whether they have the desire and drive to dominate the game for the next decade.
