I was tempted to write that Rafael Leão might be the best player in the world except for Neymar, but Kylian Mbappe just played bigger that Shaq at the World Cup…again.
I’ve been waiting for an explosive, creative player who executes tricks smoothly with both feet and who scores goals for a while. I first noticed Rafael Leão about three or four years when Milan first signed him, and I immediately knew what I was watching. In many ways, Mario Balotelli is as good or better than Leão, but European clubs and managers don’t seem to want to keep Mario Balotelli around for more than a season or two. I believe the reason for this is actually unfair to Balotelli, whom I believed was labeled a troublemaker or too difficult to handle at the beginning of his career, and I believe people still judge him by this false narrative they imagine in the privacy of their own minds.
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