Give Kylian Mbappe time to develop: Maxwell
Former Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) defender Maxwell has urged fans not to expect too much too soon from the club's French wunderkind Kylian Mbappe.
The 19 year old set the World Cup alight recently with impressive performances in France's successful campaign, netting four goals and becoming the youngest French goalscorer in World Cup history.
He was also named the Best Young Player of the World Cup.
However, Maxwell, 36, now assistant sporting director at PSG, hopes the weight of expectations does not hamper the youngster's development.
Said Maxwell: "He's only 19 and every player at this age can improve a lot. Let's give him time to rest and improve his game."
Maxwell was speaking at the launch event of Nike's new Phantom VSN football boot at the Geylang Field yesterday, which also featured PSG players such as Marco Verratti and Christopher Nkunku.
Mbappe, who became the world's second-most expensive footballer after his 180 million-euro (S$287m) move from AS Monaco last season, has been widely tipped to be the next Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.
However, Maxwell refused to be drawn into such comparisons, saying: "He can be one of the phenomena who we see like Ronaldo, Messi or (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic, but nobody can compare one player to another.
"He has different skills, a lot of speed and a lot of technique."
PSG will be hoping that Mbappe can translate his World Cup form to success in Europe, the team having crashed out of the last-16 of the Champions League for the past two seasons.
Despite spending more than 1 billion euros and winning five league titles since their Qatari owners' takeover in 2011, the Champions League trophy has been elusive for the French giants.
But Maxwell believes that failure to win the competition will not constitute a poor season.
He said: "All the big teams, they spend money and they have big squads but, in the end, only one team win.
"Of course, we want to reach the end - it's a goal for us, but we will try to be competitive as much as we can and see what happens." - JONAH FOONG
*The PhantomVSN boots will be launched on nike.com on July 30 and in stores on Aug 2.
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