The only compliment you can pay Kylian Mbappe is that he knew exactly what he had done and how much it meant.
Having seemingly earned his team a valuable and unlikely point with a late goal at fortress Anfield, the young Frenchman played a pivotal point in handing it straight back again ten minutes later.
At full-time, the horror of culpability was written all over his face. Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, offered an embrace that was all but refused and with that he was gone, straight down the tunnel with only his thoughts for company.
His sin had been a simple one and one typical of many a young player, no matter how gifted.
When the ball fell to him five yards outside of the Liverpool penalty area with only a minute of added time to go, there was only one of two places it should have gone. Upfield or out of play.
Instead, Mbappe – a young man whose game is constructed around an inner core of confidence – tried to play a cute pass in the wrong area and in that instant he handed possession back to Liverpool.
There was still much to be done for the Premier League team. Nine times out of ten, Klopp’s side would not have turned Mbappe’s small error in to a goal and with it one point in to three.
But at Anfield small mistakes can grow in to something much more significant very quickly and by the time Roberto Firmino had driven the ball across goalkeeper Alphonse Areola and in to the far corner Mbappe’s world had collapsed around his ankles pretty quickly indeed.
So no wonder, the 19-year-old wasn’t quite ready for a cuddle and some words of consolation from Klopp, no matter how well intentioned. No wonder he didn’t join his team-mates in thanking their fantastic support behind the goal.
When you get it wrong like this, there really is no other place to go but home.
Mbappe, then, will have learned a small lesson on Merseyside and also maybe a bigger and equally important one. That being that teams like PSG will not be a match for teams like Liverpool – not away from home anyway – until they can equal them for collective spirit and will.
If that sounds a little trite then it shouldn’t be taken as such. PSG have many talented players but here on another memorable Anfield evening they did not turn the sum of their parts in to anything anywhere near as significant as that of their opponents.
-Dailymail