Former Arsenal and Ivory Coast defender, Kolo Toure believes Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe can replicate the competition between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Kolo Toure also believes that the most intense competition in sports could develop between Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland if their football career continues to progress smoothly.
Haaland scored his 49th goal of the season in a 4-1 win over Arsenal on Wednesday, and Mbappe, who took home the Golden Boot at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, is having yet another fantastic campaign for Paris Saint-Germain.
Haaland who has scored the highest number of goals in the top five leagues in Europe, is the only player who has scored more than Mbappe, 34 goals, so far this season.
According to Kolo Toure, the 24-year-old France star (Mbappe) and the 22-year-old Norway star (Haaland) will compete, particularly with Mbappe’s teammate at PSG Lionel Messi’s career coming to an end and Cristiano Ronaldo departing Europe for Saudi Arabia.
“Absolutely, absolutely. They are both incredibly great players,” Toure told Stats Perform.
“Young, hungry players with great qualities, playing for top clubs. You can see the rivalry coming, you can feel it because they are both goalscorers.
“Obviously they have different qualities. There is one who is a really good scorer and one who – yes, he can score goals, but he can also provide, he can dribble.”
“It will be really interesting to see both of them fight because they are definitely the next generation.”
On Haaland, Kolo Toure added, “He is a very dominant striker. But one thing I have to say is that he chose the right thing for himself because he is a scorer and he needs to play for a team that will give him the ball.
“When you’ve got De Bruyne, you’ve got [Bernard] Silva, you’ve got [Ilkay] Gundogan, you’ve got Jack Grealish around you, unbelievable players to give him the ball, the quality they show to support him is unbelievably great.
“That’s so smart of the boy to make the right decision.
“He got on the right team. We’re going to make it work for him to just finish because he’s a finisher.”
