REIMS — Lionel Messi finally made his PSG debut on Sunday, coming off the bench in the club’s 2-0 win away at Stade de Reims in Ligue 1. But it was Kylian Mbappe who stole the show with both goals in the win.
The France international scored once in each half as even the home crowd clamored for Messi (buy his new PSG jersey here) and was finally rewarded just after Mbappe hit the second. Mauricio Pochettino waited until the final 66th minute to unleash the legendary Argentine, who subbed in for Neymar. The switch means that we will have to wait to see if the Messi-Neymar-Mbappe trio ever sees the light of day at PSG.
As far as Messi and Mbappe went, the Frenchman was very clearly happy to be on the same pitch as his illustrious new teammate and immediately looked for him at times when he might not have with other more familiar teammates.
The 22-year-old Mbappe, heavily linked with Real Madrid as the transfer window approaches an end, underlined his importance to Les Parisiens once more with a clinical performance. Mbappe headed in from a Di Maria cross after a quarter of an hour and put the finishing touch to a lightning fast counter-attack after 63 minutes as his strong understanding with summer arrival Achraf Hakimi continues to develop.
Messi’s best chance was snuffed out 12 minutes from time after linking up with Mbappe, and the South American was introduced to Ligue 1’s customary heavy tackling as Reims lost their cool at times toward the end.