PARIS: As the football world prepares to head to Qatar in six months’ time, this World Cup is set to bookend the era in which Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been the sport’s two pre-eminent players.
At the time, it felt like the 2018 tournament in Russia marked a turning point as a teenage Kylian Mbappe became a global superstar by helping France become world champions.
Mbappe consoling Messi after starring as France beat Argentina in the last 16 was an iconic image of that World Cup.
Fast forward to the present and Mbappe and Messi are team-mates at Paris…
