French coach Arsene Wenger sees PSG striker Kylian Mbappe as a legitimate successor to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
“For 15 years, two players were the benchmark,” said the long-time team manager of Arsenal on “The Athletic”: “But if you ask yourself who is following them: We have definitely found a candidate. You need a combination of greats Motivation, total dedication and intelligence. He has all of that. “
Wenger claims to have tried twice to bring Mbappe, who was then playing in Monaco, to Arsenal. “When I saw him for the first time, I said straight away: This is Pele,” he says. Curious: Mbappe later said that Wenger told him this in the conversations and that the high comparison tended to put him off.
Ronaldo is Mbappe’s role model, but he is far from being on a par with the Portuguese. “Cristiano has already made history. I’ve only been playing for five years, so it’s not my place to compare myself with him,” he told “Sport Bild”.
Mbappe’s EURO favorites
In the interview, the 22-year-old also talks about the upcoming European Championship. He describes the first game on June 15 against Germany as the most difficult of the group. The DFB team is “peppered with many young players who are extremely ambitious. There are also returnees like Thomas Müller. And of course they have a very good goalkeeper, which is not entirely unimportant for me.” The Frenchman names “France, Portugal, Germany, England, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands” as European championship favorites.
Mbappes’ contract, the second most expensive player in history after his move from AS Monaco in 2018 with 145 million after teammate Neymar (222), expires in 2022. PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi had recently described him as “not for sale” and assured that Mbappe would “never leave the club”.
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