Ancelotti hails ‘fantastic’ Mbappe after hat-trick heroics against Man City
Video credit: Eurosport
Carlo Ancelotti believes Kylian Mbappe can “reach the level of Cristiano Ronaldo” after the Frenchman’s hat-trick dumped Manchester City out of the UEFA Champions League.
The current holders progressed into the last 16 with a 6-3 aggregate victory following a 3-1 win on the night, and Ancelotti is backing Mbappe to reach the lofty bar set by Ronaldo.
Mbappe broke the deadlock with a mere four minutes on the clock with a superbly executed lob, before adding two more clinical finishes in the second half to send Pep Guardiola’s side out of Europe’s premier club competition.
Speaking about Mbappe in his post-match press conference, Ancelotti said: “He has the quality to reach the level of Cristiano [Ronaldo].
“He has to work, because Cristiano has set the bar very high. He has just started at this club.
“I think that, because of the quality he has, because of the enthusiasm he has playing here, he can reach the level of Cristiano Ronaldo. It’s not going to be that simple for him. He has to work.”
Mbappe has scored six goals in his last four appearances for Los Blancos, and the 26-year-old explained how his settling-in phase at the club is now over.
The France captain appears to have firmly turned the corner following a difficult spell of only three goals in 11 appearances between October 2 and December 4.
“The adaptation period for me has ended, and now I have to show my quality,” Mbappe explained. “I want to play well here, I want to make a mark on the season.
“We wanted to win. We wanted to qualify for the next round. For us, it was only logical that Real reached the next round of the Champions League.”
How does Mbappe’s first season compare to Ronaldo’s?
Ronaldo’s first campaign in the famous all-white strip came in 2009/10, following an £80 million transfer from Manchester United.
In terms of goals alone, Mbappe has already surpassed Ronaldo’s first-season haul, with 28 compared to the 21 the Portugal captain managed.
However, Ronaldo achieved that feat in a mere 26 appearances after battling with an ankle injury during the opening months of his trophy-laden tenure in Spain.
It meant that Ronaldo spent almost two months without playing a game for Madrid, between September 30 and November 25, 2009.
It would take a Herculean effort for Mbappe to replicate Ronaldo’s achievements at the Bernabeu, with the latter scoring a club-record 450 goals in just 438 appearances.
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