Messi responding to Mbappé responding to Messi: since the start of the World Cup, the two superstars, pretending to ignore each other, have been engaged in a breathtaking long-distance duel, highly motivated to do better than the other, with a goal record and a second star at stake.

"Lionel Messi always wants more and that will always be the case. He is like that (...) and Kylian Mbappé is like that," observed 1998 World Cup winner Thierry Henry to the microphone of American broadcaster Fox Sports, on Monday after the latest exploits of the Argentinian and the Frenchman.

How do you carve out a more glorious place in the grand history of football, when you've already been there for a long time? By pushing the boundaries.

And indeed, adding lines to the record is exactly what drives, in the same spirit on global television, the reigning Argentinian world champion and the one who preceded him in the record books with Les Bleus in 2018, both in search of a second title with their country.

They each have six matches left in this edition to achieve their goal, a marathon that will undoubtedly be full of ups and downs. But already, both have embarked on a formidable goal-scoring sprint, erasing, one by one, the glories of the more or less recent past.

- Goal for goal -

Lionel Messi, who started his sixth World Cup (another record, shared with Cristiano Ronaldo) three goals behind Miroslav Klose's previous record of 16, has overtaken and then distanced the German by two goals, scoring a hat trick against Algeria (3-0), then a brace on Monday against Austria (2-0).

Kylian Mbappé had already scored 12 goals in just two World Cups, like Pelé. After his braces against Senegal (3-1) and Iraq (3-0) - making 16 goals in as many World Cup matches - he also left behind another Frenchman, Just Fontaine (13), the German Gerd Muller (14) and the Brazilian Ronaldo (15), to sit alongside Klose with only Messi now looking ahead of him.

But even from a distance at this stage - a France-Argentina final is possible - +Kyky+ and +Leo+ look each other in the eye and trade goals.

Because from the beginning, the luck of the draw has made them play on the same day, just a few hours apart.

Last Tuesday, just after Mbappé twice broke through the Senegalese defense, Messi scored the first hat trick of his career in a World Cup to punish the overly adoring and overly sympathetic Algerians.

This was an opportunity to interview him for the first time. While downplaying it as "just a statistic and nothing more", the Argentinian did not fail to say he was "honored to find himself alongside Klose and other greats, (the Brazilian) Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé who scored two today (with France, editor's note)".

- Blockbuster -

Because yes, he knew very well that his 11-year-old junior had just momentarily overtaken him in the ranking of the best scorers in the history of the supreme competition, and he obviously set about getting back in front of him with his hat trick.

Monday brought another episode of the blockbuster: after Messi qualified Argentina by scoring twice against Austria, Mbappé added his own goal to also send France to the round of 32.

Another evacuation exercise, this time from the Frenchman: "There's no soap opera... Leo always scores, he has always scored, he scores and he will always score. I'm only thinking about helping my team. Helping my team means scoring goals and when you score goals, of course you get closer to that kind of sphere."

A sphere where football's extraterrestrials reign supreme and inspire admiration from their peers, past and present.

"Kylian is here to score goals and he is scoring them. He has a global aura (...) he has the ability to raise the bar of the record even higher," said his coach Didier Deschamps on Monday.

Earlier, Thierry Henry sang Messi's praises. "This guy doesn't chase records, records chase him. I don't know how he does it."