Messi vs Ronaldo defined a generation - but it's not Mbappe vs Haaland that will define the next one
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The introvert and the extrovert. Fire and ice, faces of opposite institutions. A Capulet and a Montague, minus the brooding through a fish tank. Nemeses, frienemies, GOATs and greats alike. But all good things come to an end.
The sun is setting on the age of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The lights are all but out for the waning Portuguese – insisting on impersonating a self 15 years younger over dead balls – while Messi is now the United States' biggest proponent of walking football; still, just, mercurial enough for Argentina.
Kylian Mbappe has replaced both of them. Perhaps he was always too big, too sure of himself for a double-act.
Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland shake hands ahead of a Champions League game between PSG and Borussia Dortmund (Image credit: Getty Images)
France's boy-king outshone Neymar (and even Messi) at Paris Saint-Germain, before assuming Ronaldo's mantle at Real Madrid. And yet watching France vs Spain – with the Frenchman shifting from first gear to sixth, via flicks and flutters, without team-mates managing to match him for the most part – it's ever more clear: Mbappe vs Erling Haaland is not the next big rivalry of the sport.
Haaland is different enough from Mbappe, sure, but to say he's the yin to his yang would be untrue. They're far too alike. Haaland operates in the minimal, typically Scandi, drifting into games rather than strangling them with a French fist. He's a different kind of forward – but this is hardly Messi vs Ronaldo: and it never has been.
Mbappe is not Messi; Haaland is not Ronaldo. There are bits of both in each (mainly Ronaldo) but this is more of a comparison akin to Thierry Henry and Ruud van Nistelrooy. Haaland is set to only play Mbappe twice a year, at most, from next season. Were it up to Florentino Perez, they'd be team-mates.
Lamine Yamal has been incredible at Euro 2024 (Image credit: Alamy)
And for all each of them are criticised for ‘ghosting’, in the shadows of a maskless Mbappe, one-half of football's next big rivalry blossomed tonight. The other completed just a single pass the other day, half the world away – but his future is well ahead of him, at least.
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Lamine Yamal is the real deal, all right. We've all seen it, by now. He's been applauded by opposing fans on his debut, set Champions League records and lit up Europe, carrying a broken establishment in Barcelona. Tonight isn't the breakthrough moment – but it's the crowning of a wonderkid. That curling effort against France was supposed to be Kylian's in the opposing net. That he's sparking Euro 2024 is surreal: most players born in 2007 should probably start hitting their peak at the Saudi Arabian World Cup in 2034.
The world is Yamal's, and opposite, stands Endrick. 165 goals in 169 games for Palmeiras youth teams, a blockbuster move to Real Madrid following and a spot in Brazil's Copa America squad. He's more than a parallel.
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It's not just that they're a similar age. It's not just that they're both bursting through at the same time. There's more of a distance between them: philosophically as much as anything.
Yamal is the creator, the artist, the boy with thinks first and sees a map of the pitch beyond the ball. Endrick comes in clutch in big moments – he's the youngest player to score at Wembley – running channels but following play with pure instinct. Fittingly, the former is representative of Barcelona's La Masia workshop, representing the expressionism of his surroundings. The latter is set for the serial winners at the Bernabeu, ready to smash records.
It's a No.10 vs a No.9: someone destined to rack up assists vs someone destined to rack up goals. Yamal is quiet, measured, with an education at Europe's biggest academy; Endrick has an ability to find a spotlight from any angle, having clinched it in South America as a teenager. The lores are polarising, yet both dazzle when they dribble, both are physically supreme for their ages. Both can take your breath, often, for opposite reasons.
Endrick celebrates scoring the winner against England (Image credit: Getty Images)
Sound familiar? The Super League may have caught Real and Barça in the same net, drawing the similarities in both for the first time in decades, but in Yamal and Endrick, each house will have a reflective pillar: El Clasico will once again be reset as a game of beliefs and values.
And just like that, Haaland vs Mbappe might actually come second to this. Two players we so desperately wanted in GOAT debates might be outshone by a pair of teenagers who were born before either Messi or Ronaldo first graced senior football. Thanks, in part, to Norway's inability to qualify for tournaments, even with two of the Premier League's greatest talents. But mainly because these two feel born to oppose one another.
Tonight was Yamal's coronation. We wait with bated breath for Endrick's.
Mark White is the Digital Content Editor at FourFourTwo. During his time on the brand, Mark has written three cover features on Mikel Arteta, Martin Odegaard and the Invincibles, and has written pieces on subjects ranging from Sir Bobby Robson’s time at Barcelona to the career of Robinho. An encyclopedia of football trivia and collector of shirts, he first joined the team back in 2020 as a staff writer.
