Abraham P. Romero Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, April 8, 2024-22:38

  • Whispers of sport The conditions for the "yes I want" between Mbappé and Florentino

  • Erling Haaland The Viking Forge

  • Carlo Ancelotti "Last year we lacked courage, mentality and football"

Luis Suárez

: "I think I choose Haaland, but Mbappé is at a high level."

Thierry Henry

: «I'll stick with Mbappé. He can create and finish, Haaland does not create, he only defines and can only play in the center. "Mbappé can play in several positions."

Arsène Wenger

: «Mbappé is technically ahead of Haaland. "When I saw him for the first time I said we had Pelé, and everyone called me crazy."

Ibrahimovic

: «If he doesn't score, you can say that Haaland has had a bad day. He is an animal, but maybe his ceiling is here. I don't know how he can improve. Mbappé is a more complete footballer. He can do more things. During recent years, the world of football, players, legends, fans and journalists, have asked themselves the same question:

Who is better, Mbappé or Haaland?

To know more

The clause.

I will never forgive you, Kylian Mbappé, ever! Well, or maybe yes

  • Editor: IÑAKO DÍAZ-GUERRA

I will never forgive you, Kylian Mbappé, ever! Well, or maybe yes

The two monsters come to see the greats of Spanish football this week, the Frenchman visits

Barcelona

and the Norwegian

Madrid

, in a quarterfinal that will serve, once again, to put weights on their respective scales when it comes to seating them in the throne of world football, the one that continues to look for an heir after the blackout of the careers of

Messi and Cristiano

.

In the comparative analysis between

Mbappé

(Paris, 1998) and

Haaland

(Leeds, 2000) we must go far beyond goals and assists. Let's start with the basics. The first measures

178 centimeters

; the second,

194

. One is

right-handed

, the other

left-handed

, and both are children of athletes.

Kylian's father

tried

to be a football player and his

mother

played handball, while Erling's father was a professional footballer and his mother became a

heptathlon

champion in Norway. They have sport in their blood and from it they have obtained extraordinary genetics. Mbappé reached

38 km/h

in a Ligue 1 match and Haaland brushed his back with

36.3

. They are bullets.

Women in charge

Personally, both families were surrounded very early on by two lawyers who have been key in their careers.

Delphine Verheyden

handles all the legal affairs of the Mbappé family and

Rafaela Pimenta

is the Haalands' right hand. Their environments are very closed and no one speaks for them beyond their closest family members.

Fayza Lamari

, the Frenchman's mother, is his voice in the negotiations, while

Alf-Inge,

Alfie

, the Norwegian's father, does not miss a single conversation about the future of his son. In recent years, both have been on the other side of the tables that they have shared with those responsible for

Real Madrid

, always interested in them.

Fayza was with Mbappé on the visit that Kylian made to Valdebebas at the

age of 13

, when he was doubting the next step in his football adolescence, and Alfie was in

2021

with

Mino Raiola

, when the Norwegian clan was considering which team to choose after his time in Dortmund. Curiously, in no case did they choose Madrid, although the Frenchman is now closer than ever.

Same goals/assists ratio

But let's get to what's important: what happens on the pitch. In his professional career, between club and national team,

Mbappé has accumulated 324 goals and 122 assists in 436 games

. That is to say. 0.74 points per duel, or one goal/pass per match.

Haaland, for his part, has 243 goals and 51 assists in 285 games

. 0.85 points per game or one goal/assist per duel. That is, his goals/passes ratio is exactly the same.

We are talking about the players who have broken all

youth records in the Champions League

. Mbappé was the youngest to reach 10 goals: 18 years and 350 days; and Haaland has been the youngest to score 40, surpassing Messi. There are, as examples, the Frenchman's hattrick against Barça at the Camp Nou in 2021 and the Norwegian's three goals with Salzburg in his debut in the Champions League. Mbappé is the 16th all-time scorer of the tournament and Haaland is the 20th. This year they are tied in the

continental Pichichi

with 6 goals, along with Kane and Griezmann.

What does Artificial Intelligence say?

As for the national leagues, the

1vs1 Performance

platform has been based on an artificial intelligence algorithm to detail the differences between the two during this course. Taking into account values ​​such as completed passes, goals, assists, expected goals, attacks generated or losses, it has been defined that

Mbappé

, who has 24 goals in France, has an offensive grade of

99.97 out of 100

and Haaland , who is the Premier's top scorer with 18,

99.8

, while in defense the Norwegian narrowly surpasses the Frenchman: 54.83 and 50.75.

This season's advanced statistics perfectly explain the differences between the two and some of those statements at the beginning of the article. The summary is clear:

Mbappé moves more

. Consulting his

heat map

(the areas of the field in which he plays) speaks of a footballer who predominates on the left side and who is capable of appearing in the center, always from three quarters of the opponent's field. Haaland, on the other hand, carries out most of his actions in the area and barely participates, subject to City's style.

The shooting location

According to the WhoScored

platform

, Mbappé is the

6th player with the best average score

of the season (7.74), while Haaland is 27th (7.34). They both shoot a lot on goal, 4.3 and 4 shots per game, only surpassed by

Harry Kane and Boniface

(Leverkusen), but the distance of those shots also explains their game. Mbappé is one of the greatest

dribblers

in Europe (2.1 per game) and is the one with the most goals from

outside the area

(5). Haaland, however, takes half of his shots on goal from the six-yard box and barely makes

12 passes per game

, ranking him as the 121st center forward in this regard. Mbappé gives 33, the second attacker who participates the most.

On the horizon, a decade for them and a relationship that encourages that rivalry: "

I don't like comparing myself to others

," Haaland said. "In all humility,

I don't think everyone can change positions

and maintain the level like me," Mbappé said. In his head, the same phrase: "

Cristiano and Messi are incomparable

."