Kylian Mbappe admitted he is flattered to have become the second-youngest player, after Brazil legend Pele, to have scored three goals at a World Cup after his double helped Les Bleus to a thrilling 4-3 round-of-16 win over Argentina.
Speaking with TF1 after the match, the Paris Saint-Germain man was happy with his performance, but will not be letting himself get carried away.
“That is good — it is a great competition,” Mbappe said of the statistic. “The biggest names are here — it is flattering. However, it will not stop me from working and going as far as possible in Russia.
“The press thought that I was sulking [prematch], but I did not want to be the spokesman — my role is to play, and today I was rewarded.”
Antoine Griezmann opened the scoring with a penalty, which was won by Mbappe, and the Atletico Madrid man admitted he got lucky but praised his teammate and expressed his hope for an Uruguay quarterfinal.
“I was lucky to wrong-foot the goalkeeper with my penalty,” said Griezmann to TF1. “I want to congratulate Kylian for his performance. At this level, everybody was good. We already had a good side, but we have raised our game — I hope that it will be like it was at Euro 2016.
“Portugal or Uruguay does not matter, but I would prefer Uruguay — good friends play for them.”
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