🚨🗣️ 𝗡𝗘𝗪: Kylian Mbappé: “Messi or Ronaldo? I've played with both! Well, I played with Messi and I played against Ronaldo. Cristiano is my idol, but I also played with Leo. And having played against both, the truth is they are really different. They aren't the same.
"The rivalry between them was good because everything completely opposes them. You know: [Ronaldo] right-footed/[Messi] left-footed, [Ronaldo] tall/[Messi]short, [Messi] more elegant/[Ronaldo] more raw, [Ronaldo] more explosive/[Messi] with more vision/playmaking.
"If I agree with the saying: 'One is hard work, the other is pure talent?' That is a take from someone who doesn't play football. In all my debates, I say this. No, that’s a take from a guy who doesn't play football! Because if you can sit there and tell me that Ronaldo has no talent, or that Messi doesn't work hard, it means you've never in your life put on boots to go train every single day. I just can't understand how someone who has put on boots to train every day could think that way.”
— via @AlbicelesteTalk
Maybe we're taking it for granted because we all expected Lamine to win La Liga Player of the Season after everything he's done, but winning an award like this at 18 years old is simply not normal.
No matter how much people complain about his PR, it sometimes feels like he's a victim of his own brilliance. We've normalized so many things he does that we'd probably never seen from any other footballer at his age. That's how absurdly high the standards around him have become.