Both Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe had shared the same dressing room at Paris Saint-German in French Ligue 1.
Geneva: The stars are starting to align for another Lionel Messi vs Kylian Mbappe showdown on a global football stage to follow their epic FIFA World Cup final in 2022. The men’s football tournament at the Paris Olympics starts July 24 and Argentina have now joined host France in the 16-nation lineup.
After Argentina earned its Olympic place late Sunday, beating two-time defending champion Brazil, talk turned toward luring Messi to compete for a second gold medal 16 years after his first.
“The door is open for a player like him to join us,” said Argentina coach Javier Mascherano, a close friend of Messi and title-winning teammate at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “Then it depends on him and his commitments.”
Mbappe has often said he wants to represent France at his hometown Olympics where the men’s football final on August 9 is at the Parc des Princes stadium of his club Paris Saint-Germain. Mbappe and Messi were PSG teammates when they went to the World Cup in Qatar and starred in perhaps the greatest final of all that ended with the Argentina icon lifting the trophy.
Messi scored twice, Mbappe got three in a sensational 3-3 draw as France rallied to first force extra time, then a penalty shootout that Argentina won. The French wonderkid said in an interview last month he wants to “write my name in the history of the French team as a player who mattered.”
“For every athlete, the Olympics hold a special place,” he told GQ magazine. It is not so simple for a great player just to say he wants to play at a Olympics tournament played in late-July and early-August. FIFA-written tournament rules do allow for each Olympic squad to include three over-age players in what is an Under-23 event for the men. There is no age restriction in the women’s event.
The complication is that each player’s club — Inter Miami for Messi, currently PSG for Mbappe though that could change — is not compelled by FIFA rules to let him go to the Olympics. The Olympic tournament is not included on FIFA’s calendar of men’s international match dates which dictate when clubs must release players to their national teams.
Messi and Mbappe also have major tournament commitments ahead of the Olympics. Argentina are the defending champion at the 16-nation Copa America hosted by the United States and France are at the 24-nation European Championship in Germany. Both finals are on July 14 — just 10 days before Olympic men’s football starts with France playing in Marseille that day.
Playing a continental championship and Olympics back-to-back is a severe physical commitment, especially for players with European clubs. In 2016, Messi’s then-teammate at Barcelona, Neymar, was wanted to lead host Brazil to a gold medal the soccer-crazy nation craved at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Neymar missed a special edition of the Copa America in 2016 to prepare for captaining Brazil to the Olympic title at the Maracana stadium, scoring in a 1-1 draw in the final against Germany and converting the decisive penalty in the shootout.