Mbappé on Messi, why he isn't closely tracking him at the World Cup | OneFootball

Kylian Mbappé, who scored a brace in France’s 3-0 win over Iraq in the World Cup group stage, spoke about Lionel Messi and made it clear that he is not focused on what the Argentine does match after match: “If I focused on watching what Leo does, I’d have to push myself even harder.”

After taking the three points and securing qualification for the World Cup round of 32, the French forward spoke about the captain of the Argentina national team, who earlier had scored two goals to become the top scorer in World Cup history.

“Leo always scores. He always has and he always will. If I focused on watching what Leo does, I’d have to push myself even harder,” explained the Real Madrid player, and added: “I don’t pay attention to what he does at all. I’m only thinking about helping my team.”

With today’s match, the former PSG player reached 100 appearances for the French national team and now has 16 World Cup goals, two behind Leo and the same number as Miroslav Klose, who until this edition was the top scorer in history.

Kylian Mbappé scored two goals against Iraq (Hannah Peters – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

The French star shared his feelings after these first two matches for his team, both of which ended in victory and with two goals from him in each of them: “I feel very good. Everyone knows that the World Cup is a major goal for a player. I tried to have the best season possible with Real Madrid. I had a serious injury in January and then I came back in the best possible way physically and mentally to arrive here in good condition.”

Lastly, the striker referred to the interruption of more than two hours during the match because of the severe storm that hit Philadelphia: “It was a very long night. A lot of time passed, emotionally and also with a lot of nerves. It’s very difficult because we had to stay focused, we had to remain in the locker room.”

“It was an hour and a half, almost two hours, in the locker room. Staying focused is very difficult. It demands a lot. We made a great effort to try to stay involved. It’s very complicated, but in the end, we achieved our objective

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.