Did Kylian Mbappe one-up Neymar with his flop and theatrics vs. Uruguay?
France’s Kylian Mbappe plays club soccer with Neymar at Paris St. Germain. Perhaps Neymar has been teaching him a thing or two about selling a foul.
Mbappe ran into — lightly touched? — the outstretched arm of Uruguay’s Cristian Rodriguez on Friday. After Rodriguez’s arm made contact with Mbappe, the French forward tumbled down into a heap.
He stayed there for a while and appeared to be in significant pain. He did not want Diego Godin to bother him.
While the pain might have been temporary, that’s all it was. Mbappe was up on his feet and looked uninjured shortly thereafter as members of France and Uruguay’s teams had to be separated over the incident.
Rodriguez got carded for the incident, which is probably a good call. It was a gratuitous foul. Mbappe also got carded for his theatrics. That’s probably a good call too. There’s a difference between reacting appropriately to a foul and what Mbappe did.
We’ll see if Neymar watched his PSG teammate and has taken notes. The Brazil star has been fouled a ton in the World Cup so far. But he’s also been so dramatic that he’s become a meme. It’s never good when you become a meme for something that isn’t positive.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
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