PARIS: Kylian Mbappe heads to Munich fresh from a record-breaking weekend with Paris Saint-Germain and determined to lead the French giants past Bayern and into the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
PSG trail 1-0 from the first leg of the heavyweight last-16 tie, after injury reduced Mbappe to a cameo appearance off the bench in that match last month.
Yet the 24-year-old France superstar did enough in his short time on the pitch then – including having a goal disallowed for a marginal offside – to make it clear that he can swing the tie the Parisians’ way.
Since that game, the Ligue 1 leaders have recovered from a worrying slump in form to claim three straight domestic wins, scoring 11 goals in the process. Mbappe has netted five of them, including one in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Nantes that saw him overtake Edinson Cavani and become PSG’s all-time top scorer, five and a half years after signing from Monaco in 2017.
The player who in December became the first to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final since Geoff Hurst in 1966, boasts the remarkable record of 201 goals from 247 games in a PSG shirt.
“Every player plays to leave a mark and so that his name goes down in football history, to not be forgotten. I think with this record that people will remember me here,” Mbappe said after being awarded a trophy by PSG in a lavish on-field presentation before an adoring crowd.
Mbappe has 30 goals in 30 games for his club this season and has a strong claim to be the best player in the world right now, even if Lionel Messi recently pipped him to win The Best FIFA men’s player award.
Messi, with 18 goals himself for PSG this season, is mainly there to serve Mbappe in Christophe Galtier’s side, for whom the absence of Neymar due to injury in Munich – and for several more months – may not matter.
Going out of the Champions League in the first knockout round for what would be the fifth time in seven seasons really would matter for PSG and their Qatari owners.
