As he backpedalled towards the Nou Camp corner flag, beckoning his Paris Saint-Germain team-mates towards him with arms outstretched and a stoic nod of his head, Kylian Mbappe also seemed to be conducting his own coronation. After completing a spectacular hat-trick against Barcelona, the narrative of a changing of the Ballon d’Or guard would have been compelling enough without a weary and dejected Lionel Messi being present on the same pitch. With him looking on, it felt irresistible.
How strange, then, to take a step back and realise that we are already two-and-a-half years removed from what is likely to be Mbappe’s legacy-defining achievement: a World Cup final triumph — the holy grail that has managed to elude Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — with France at the first time of asking, sealed with a goal that saw him become the first teenager to score on that grandest of football stages since Pele did it 60 years earlier.
