There is an alternative world in which Kylian Mbappé is now being vetted as France’s saviour.
The scorer of the first men’s FIFA World Cup final hat-trick since Sir Geoff Hurst for England in 1966.
A two-time World Cup champion and the winner of a Golden Boot — all before his 24th birthday.
Instead, Mbappé was sitting in the French dugout, shirt covering his face, as Argentina celebrated the long-awaited coronation of Messi as their undisputed idol.
Mbappé still made it to the podium, clutching a golden trophy too — although not the one he, nor France, came for — the unsmiling extra in a supplementary scene glorifying Argentina’s World Cup story.
Perhaps unfairly, this final had been defined as a battle between two Paris St Germain men: Lionel Messi and Mbappé.
Perhaps it will still be defined by that, the old dog getting one up over the young pup.
Never mind that Antoine Griezmann had been France’s best player and, up until the final, arguably the best of anyone at this year’s tournament.
Never mind that, but for the final 20 minutes of normal time, Mbappé was as anonymous in this game as he was for large parts of the semifinal win over Morocco and the entire quarterfinal victory against England.
That in itself is an extraordinary statement to make — the man scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final for goodness sake.
But Mbappé was poor in a generally flustered French side throughout the first half. No player had fewer touches than him in the opening half hour.
But, just when his team needed him, he burst into life, slotting a nerveless penalty with 10 minutes of normal time remaining before rifling home the equaliser just over 90 seconds later.
He slotted a second penalty home in extra time to become the first man in 56 years to score three in a World Cup final.
That two of those were penalties should not matter — just ask Harry Kane how hard it is to score back-to-back spot kicks in the same match (let alone three when you consider the shootout success).
Anyway, perhaps he can be consoled by scoring a controversy-free hat-trick. As former Scotland international Ally McCoist said on commentary in the UK: “Mbappé the first person to score a hat-trick in a World Cup where every goal the ball has crossed over the line.”
That nationalist pedantry aside, Mbappé is just the fifth man to score goals in multiple World Cup finals after Pelé, Vavá, Paul Breitner and Zinedine Zidane.
Having scored four goals across two World Cup finals, he is now the highest scorer in the sport’s showpiece match in history.
With 12 goals total at World Cups, he is joint sixth on the all-time scoring list at men’s World Cup finals competitions, alongside Pelé.
He was the youngest player to hit double figures at the tournament to boot.
The comparison with Pelé is apt despite the problems associated with crossing eras.
Both men won their first tournament as teenagers: Pelé in 1958, Mbappé 60 years later in Russia.
Pelé reached a second final four years later and, despite not scoring in the final, lifted the trophy for a second time.
While this tournament should be remembered as Messi’s tournament, just as Maradona’s will forever be associated with 1986, it’s wrong to ignore Mbappé’s contribution.
You could argue that Mbappé’s time will come again — he’s still only 23 after all.
But then you could also argue that this is still Mbappé’s time.
“He is a great player, but he is young,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters after the match.
“What do you want me to tell you? He was a top scorer in this cup. He is an extraordinary player. He has already won a World Cup, he made it to a final and he is only [23] years old.”
Mbappé’s heroics in a French shirt have already elevated him to a rare pantheon of stars who have claimed the ultimate glory on the world’s biggest stage, lighting his name up alongside Pelé, Maradona and, of course, Messi himself.
And although Argentina’s prankster-in-chief Emiliano Martínez bizarrely held a minute’s silence for Mbappé in the dressing room after the match — that’s right, the man who put the ball past him four times in the preceding two hours or so, the French star isn’t done. Far from it.
This time, Mbappé must quietly melt back into the European domestic calendar, sharing a dressing room with the latest man to be anointed by supporters as a footballing God.
Because for every victor, there has to be the vanquished. That’s sport.
But when the dust settles, he can still look back at a fabulous tournament. And, had France not been hampered by so many pre-tournament injuries, competing without the likes of Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kante and reigning Ballon D’Or winner Karim Benzema, who knows how the final script would have read?
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