Tommy Martin: Has age of the superstar been replaced by the system?
“Who’s the best player in the world right now?” a small voice piped up as we watched Borussia Dortmund’s rearguard action end Kylian Mbappé’s hopes of finishing his time at Paris Saint Germain as a Champions League winner.
It is only right and proper that innocent babes consult their elders on such matters. In the crevasses of our brows and the silver of our temples lie the wisdom of years. For a wistful moment I remembered the subjects of my own confusion at a similar age – the fall of the Berlin Wall, the plight of apartheid South Africa, Marathon bars being changed to Snickers – and was thankful for wise parental counsel.
But now, with the responsibility of adulthood upon me, and on this most fundamental issue, I was flummoxed. Who is the best player in the world right now? Is it Mbappé, who won a World Cup in his teens but was at that moment being playfully tossed between Nico Schlotterbeck and Mats Hummels like a hacky sack?
Is it Erling Haaland, currently involved in an unseemly spat with Roy Keane which has involved some of his on-field attributes being likened to that of a League Two player? Now, Keane is not exactly a disinterested party when it comes to members of the wider Haaland clan, but no one ever compared anything about Zinedine Zidane to a League Two player, other than maybe his haircut.
Jude Bellingham’s name has been mentioned in dispatches throughout his debut season at Real Madrid, the manner of his conquest of the Bernabeu promoting his case for the global throne. Like a candidate for the US presidency, a path to power opened for the young Englishman: lead Real to Champions League glory, end 58 years of hurt for his nation at the Euros in the summer and it would be case closed. Arise, Sir Jude.
But
Read on irishexaminer.com
