Will Haaland vs. Mbappe be soccer’s next Messi vs. Ronaldo rivalry?

Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland are two of soccer’s biggest and brightest young stars. After last month’s Champions League trolling, could they emerge as the sport’s next great individual rivalry?

Erling Haaland had done nothing to wrong Paris Saint-Germain but score against them. Nonetheless, the French side decided to parody the young Norwegian’s trademark goal celebration having knocked Borussia Dortmund out of the last 16 of the Champions League with Kylian Mbappe at the center of those joyous scenes at the Parc des Princes.

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Perhaps it purely spoke to how much PSG saw Haaland as a threat to their hopes of being crowned European champions. This is, after all, a player who has already scored 40 times this season, including 12 in 11 games since making the move to the Bundesliga from Red Bull Salzburg in January. The French champions must have surely feared that Haaland’s momentum would see them flattened, especially after his first-leg double.

As Haaland has quickly become the face of Dortmund as one of the most exciting young teams in Europe right now, Mbappe is PSG’s poster boy. There is even greater pressure on the shoulders of the 21-year-old with the Ligue 1 outfit completely and utterly obsessed with the notion of becoming continental conquerors.

Even for a World Cup winner, this pressure is potentially crushing, yet Mbappe seems to be one of the few figures currently in the PSG squad capable of handling it. Neymar, for instance, has been engulfed by it, losing his focus and discipline more than once since making the move to the French capital from Barcelona two-and-a-half years ago. Mbappe, the player signed to be Neymar’s understudy, has instead emerged as the club’s figurehead.

Haaland also appears to possess a similar sort of mental strength which will serve him well at the elite level of the game. He and Mbappe are destined to spend a decade or more at the top of the sport and the Champions League clash between Dortmund and PSG earlier this month might just have been the first episode in an unfolding rivalry between the two players.

It could potentially succeed the era-defining duel between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as soccer’s predominant individual contest. At its most compelling, the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry came with an edge. While the two players denied it, there was clearly some animosity between them at the peak of the contest. There might now be the same between Haaland and Mbappe after what happened at the Parc des Princes in the Champions League.

Of course, the dynamics of the rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid added to the Messi-Ronaldo contest. In that sense, there is still a lot to be determined in the personal duel between Haaland and Mbappe. Both players could be on the move again soon with no guarantee of how the soccer snow globe will settle if that happens.

Real Madrid have a long standing interest in Mbappe and view the French forward as their dream signing, the man to kickstart a new ‘Galacticos’ era. But the Spanish giants are also believed to be interested in Haaland with the Norwegian’s €50 million release clause meaning his stay at Dortmund could be a short one.

It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Haaland and Mbappe could end up at the same club as teammates. This would obviously have an impact on any developing rivalry between the two. On the flip side, they could end up on either side of an existing club contest. If Mbappe joins Real Madrid, Haaland might be a good fit for Barcelona. Soccer has a habit of fueling the narrative.

Whether or not Haaland and Mbappe directly follow in the footsteps of Messi and Ronaldo, they are the best placed of European soccer’s next generation to set the zeitgeist for the next decade or so. There will be more matches like the one witnessed earlier this month. Maybe next time Haaland will get to celebrate.