Mbappe in line for greatness: Richard Buxton

Sometimes, even distortion can reveal the greatest truths in football. Take the recent image circulating on social media of Kylian Mbappe and Neymar.

As Paris Saint-Germain players rally around the World Cup winner in celebration, his teammate is shown at a distance, sullenly lurking in the shadows like the Dark Knight.

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Clearly the camera can lie.

Neymar and Mbappe's relationship is more bromance than sibling feud and, if the former harbours any resentment about the latter's trajectory, he has a funny way of showing it.

The Brazil talisman revealed that his seven-year-old son is a huge fan of Mbappe and tipped him to be firmly in the mix for this year's Ballon d'Or alongside Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Yet that photo-shopped image still manages to depict a stark reality.

Neymar left Barcelona last year in order to step out from beneath Messi's shadow. Instead, he has found himself eclipsed in the French capital by another wunderkind.

The debate about the world's best player has moved forward, but he again stands on the periphery looking in.

Greatness still clearly recognises greatness and others have similarly exalted Mbappe ahead of France's friendly with Iceland tomorrow morning (Singapore time). Antoine Griezmann sees strong similarities between his compatriot and Ronaldo during the latter's Manchester United heyday.

At Old Trafford, the Portugal captain did not actively go in search of goals. They became an incidental add-on in his repertoire until the 2007/08 season.

But Mbappe is far ahead of the curve of both Ronaldo and Messi during their formative years.

By the time he helped Les Bleus to World Cup victory in Russia this summer, the 19-year-old had comfortably dwarfed Messi with a 56-goal haul since making his senior debut, compared to the Barca talisman's paltry record of 29 at the same stage of their careers.

Didier Deschamps has to take partial credit for that development, constructively challenging the forward to continually raise his personal benchmark.

Even his four goals in 13 minutes as PSG saw off Lyon last weekend still managed to draw criticism from the national coach.

Killing off any hopes of a Ligue 1 title race was the furthest thing from Deschamps' mind when he spoke with Mbappe earlier this week. Three failed one-on-one situations, where he was bested by Anthony Lopes, were his overriding takeaway from the Parc des Princes clash.

That constant pursuit of perfection is why dethroning Ronaldo would be the ultimate honour for Mbappe.

His youth was spent idolising the erstwhile Real Madrid star in a bedroom shrine. They would later meet as part of a failed attempt to convince him to move to the Bernabeu.

Mbappe's infatuation ended once the wide-eyed boy became a show-stopper in his own right.

Defeat by the La Liga giants in last season's Champions League Round of 16 has also helped.

In Guingamp tomorrow and next week in Paris, where France take on Germany in their latest Nations League clash, he can lay down further markers of a bid to seize Ronaldo's Ballon d'Or.

The odds are currently stacked in Mbappe's favour as his former idol adjusts to new surroundings at Juventus, not to mention fighting historic allegations about his personal life, while Messi is hardly living a charmed existence as Barca lurch between extremes.

Croatia midfielder Luka Modric, too, is struggling to rise above the noise despite sweeping the top honour at Fifa's The Best awards last month as Real find themselves mired in an all-too-familiar crisis.

It is far from a foregone conclusion that the latest battle for the game's ultimate personal accolade will be anything other than an extension of Messi and Ronaldo's two-horse race.

More than most, Mbappe holds the key to ending that decade-long duopoly.