MY ACCOUNT
Barcelona forward Ansu Fati is at least on a par with Paris Saint-Germain superstar Kylian Mbappe, according to LaLiga president Javier Tebas.
Fati has enjoyed an impressive rise from Barca academy product to first-team star over the past two years, despite having to contend with a number of injury setbacks.
Among a host of other records set since his debut in August 2019, Fati can lay claim to being Barca’s youngest goalscorer and the youngest scorer in Champions League history.
Mbappe is also no stranger to breaking records, not least becoming the youngest player in history to reach the 100-goal mark in Ligue 1 at 22 years and 91 days old in March.
The World Cup winner is further along in his development than Fati, having made his senior breakthrough with Monaco in December 2015 before joining PSG two years later.
While Mbappe is widely heralded as one of the most coveted players in world football, Tebas argues he is no better than Barca youngster Fati.
“We always like to give a lot of value to what we have outside of Spain,” Tebas told El Partidazo de Cope.
“We have Ansu Fati, who unfortunately has had injuries, but over time he has shown that he is equal to or better than Mbappe.”
Fati, who inherited Lionel Messi’s number 10 shirt at Camp Nou in September and recently signed a new long-term deal, has scored 17 goals in 51 appearances for Barca in all competitions.
Over the same period, Mbappe has found the net 77 times in 97 games for PSG, netting at a rate of one goal every 98 minutes. Fati gets one every 138 minutes.
Mbappe has also outperformed Fati in terms of assists, setting up his PSG team-mates 33 times compared to three for the Spain international.
When comparing the players over the same point in their career, Mbappe also has the edge.
Across his first 51 appearances for Monaco, which like Fati was made up of 27 starts and the rest from the substitutes’ bench, Mbappe scored 24 times at a rate of one every 108 minutes and assisted 10 more.
That includes a big-chance conversion return of 71 per cent at that stage in his career – which has since dropped to 48 – compared to 29 for Fati.
