• Reaction

Tuchel describes how Mbappe can surpass Messi and Ronaldo

Getty Images
Advertisement

After his impressive display against FC Barcelona, Kylian Mbappe got the biggest compliment from Thomas Tuchel on Monday afternoon. 

Thomas Tuchel coached Kylian Mbappe for a number of years and possibly got some of his best performances to date. However, his very best performance came recently against FC Barcelona as a statement for the world to know. The young French international wants everybody to realize he is the present and future in football. But getting all the way to the throne isn’t going to be easy for him or any other player for that matter.

Taking Messi and Ronaldo off their perch has proven nearly impossible for the last decade. Tuchel thinks Mbappe can pull it off but he believes it will have to be by force. After last week’s first step was taken against Messi, Mbappe needs to have a similar night against Cristiano Ronaldo. But more importantly, he needs to win the Champions League and score an insane amount of goals in a single season. All this needs to happen at the same time and repeatedly for many years.

Tuchel trusts Mbappe can pull it off. 

“They will never step aside, never of free will (Messi and Ronaldo). They will never step aside,” Chelsea boss Tuchel told BT Sport. “If he wants to be there, he has to push them aside. This is clear: on that level, nobody will step aside for him. Scoring a hat-trick at Nou Camp is a message and is what he demands of himself. It is his potential, it is what he has in him. He is still young, he is still hungry, he is a shark in his mentality. He wants to grab everything that he can have. This is the mentality that you need, and I mean it in the most positive way because he’s a nice guy in private and in person.

“He’s a nice guy, super intelligent, super funny, but once he’s on the pitch, he’s a shark. This is what the big guys are. If there is one drop of blood in the water, they arrive. This is Kylian, and if he wants to enter on the level from the guys that you mentioned [Messi and Ronaldo] – because they are there for years and years and years – I don’t think they are ready to step aside just because he arrives. He has to take it. I think he will do everything to do it.”

x