When Neymar disappeared from the big football stage at the World Cup, he cried.

The end in the quarterfinals against Croatia had badly added to the Brazilian.

When he reappeared at Paris St. Germain, he made a rather embarrassing appearance.

In the league game against Racing Strasburg, he was initially booked for a foul and was sent off two minutes later for a remarkably bad swallow.

According to the TV channel Canal+, Neymar left the Prinzenparkstadion during the game.

Another star did better.

Ten days after losing the World Cup final against Argentina, France's exceptional striker Kylian Mbappé made a successful return to everyday life.

The World Cup top scorer shot Paris on Wednesday evening with a converted penalty kick in the sixth minute of added time in the home game against second-last Strasbourg to a 2-1 (1-0) win.

Messi is still missing at Paris

The two goals before that went to Marquinhos: first the Brazilian scored in the 14th minute to put Paris ahead, then he scored an own goal in the 51st minute.

PSG got their 14th win in 16 games and remains the undefeated leader of the French football championship.

While Mbappé and Neymar, who had to leave the field in the 62nd minute, were in the starting line-up, world champion Lionel Messi was still missing from the French champions' squad.

Strasbourg is still in relegation place 19.

Two yellow cards within two minutes, dismissal after trying to flay a penalty: The restart after the bitter World Cup flop was a disgrace for Neymar.

First he unluckily hit his opponent Adrien Thomasson's face in a duel with his hand, a few moments later he fell to the ground in the guests' penalty area without any contact with the opponent - and was completely right to see yellow-red at the score of 1: 1.

The hunt for appointments continues on New Year's Day.

In the top game at second-placed RC Lens, the leaders will still have to do without Messi.

And now without Neymar.

Immediately before the game kicked off, PSG announced that Marco Verratti had extended his contract by two years up to and including June 30, 2026.

The 30-year-old Italy international has been with the Parisians since 2012 and has won 29 titles with the club since then.

The game against Strasbourg was his 399th overall for PSG.

He is the second most-capped player behind Jean-Marc Pilorget, who made 435 appearances for the club between 1975 and 1989.

Meanwhile, Mbappé has yet to get over the World Cup defeat to Argentina.

"I guess you'll never digest that," he admitted.

“I tried to come back with the best possible energy and to be as positive as possible.

I didn't play a crazy game, but I kept believing in myself and pushing because I knew that you could turn the tide out of nowhere, and we did that very late in the game," said the 24-year-old.

Mbappé also commented on the World Cup celebrations of the Argentina national team and his Parisian teammate Lionel Messi.

"I spoke to him after the game and congratulated him because it was his goal in life.

For me too, but I failed, so you always have to be a good player," he said in retrospect.

Most recently, Argentina's players mocked Mbappé.

Videos of the Argentineans dancing in their dressing room circulated on the Internet, on one of which goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez demanded: "A minute's silence for Mbappé!" "Celebrating is not my problem.

You shouldn't waste your energy on trivial things, for me it's important to do my best for the club.

We'll wait for Leo to come back so we can win games and score goals again," Mbappé said.