Paris Saint-Germain’s Lionel Messi has indeed finally made the turn-around in the Ligue 1 side, as expected of him by many. However, although there had been a bit of a delay in happening, nary a Messi fan doubted his ability to do so, having been so familiar with, and accustomed to, his prodigious football skills and feats all these years. After going on a prolonged streak where he awkwatdly recorded neither a goal nor an assist, the Argentine forward has suddenly come through with 10 goal contributions in the season across all competitions.
The Argentine’s French PSG sidekick, Kylian Mbappe, has already had the benefit of a few months to observe the several key factors behind Messi’s potency and efficacy already evidently in the process of evolving to fit the flow of his young French strike-mate as of late.
Speaking to PSG TV, Mbappe was asked about the team’s success on counters, where he noted that building a special bond with his teammates, particularly with Messi, has been key among the notable aspects behind this.
“Adaptation is quicker when the personal bond is strong, because it helps on the pitch, you have fewer worries, fewer fears,” Mbappe said. “But it’s normal that new players arrive with confidence, with patterns that they have worked on.
“Even a player like Messi played at Barcelona for 15 years, and for 15 years he did the same thing, it worked. When he comes here, it’s different, so we have to let him adapt and we have to adapt to him.
“I think that’s also something we work on in training, where we manage to create passing patterns. We also manage to create things during games, it’s not necessarily only tactical work, but everything that can create a connection, to say that you know that such and such a player, when he’s there, he can do this or that.”
Mbappe and Messi have noticeably begun to gel well – seemingly so natural in reading and anticipating each other’s play as intuitively and instinctively as hoped for by many – in a binding alchemy that promises to bode well for the Parisian giants.
The duo seems to have produced keen chemistry together on the pitch so far in the season. For starters, it was Mbappe who assisted Messi for the Argentine’s first goal with PSG which came in the team’s UEFA Champions League home group stage fixture against Manchester City, and Messi has reciprocated with brilliant assists for the French World Cup winner as well.
Even at this juncture, it is definitely neither too soon nor would it be considered presumptuous to expect this chemistry between the two dynamos to ultimately fizzle with such explosive potential akin to the one that had developed between the Argentine wizard and his Brazilian team mate, Neymar, at Barcelona in the earlier years. The permutations latent in this triumvirate of unbelievable talents are limitless, to say the least. Which is what the football world is still waiting to see when the Brazilian playmaker returns to the pitch in the new year.
Mbappe has to date notched 13 goals in all competitions in the current campaign, which include nine goals scored over 13 matches played in Ligue 1.