France Team Mocking Lionel Messi Resurfaces After Argentina World Cup Win

The aftermath of Argentina's victory over France in the World Cup final in Qatar on Sunday is beginning to get personal, with Argentinian players coming under fire for mocking French star Kylian Mbappé. However, footage has re-emerged of France players singing an uncomplimentary song featuring Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi.

Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez is seemingly at the heart of the current trolling of Mbappé, holding a baby doll with an image of Mbappé's face fixed to it while the Argentina players took their bus tour of Buenos Aires amid wild celebrations.

This followed footage posted on social media of Martínez leading the team's celebrations in the locker room after the final in which he stopped his dancing teammates for a "moment of silence" for Mbappé before they all continued dancing.

Messi has been called out for not asking for some respect for Mbappé, who is his teammate at Paris Saint-Germain.

British TV presenter Piers Morgan, who has publicly lambasted Messi for "gloating" since winning the World Cup, called out soccer's G.O.A.T. over Martínez's antics.

He tweeted a pic of the Aston Villa goalkeeper holding a doll with Mbappé's face and wrote: "Why is Messi letting Martinez mock & humiliate Mbappe like this? They're teammates at PSG, just so weird & graceless."

While some agreed with Morgan and thought that it was "disgusting" others pointed out that it was payback for what Mbappé had said before the World Cup.

One tweeted: "Because Mbappé said that South American football was way behind Europe before the World Cup... Simple as that. A little pay back. And he won't get bothered whatsoever. Mbappé said a million times that he doesn't pay attention on what people say or do related to him."

Another added: "Because Mbappe didn't stop his whole team from mocking and humiliating Messi."

Before heading to Qatar, Mbappé had talked about the reason why European nations had performed better at recent World Cup tournaments compared with other countries.

"The advantage that we Europeans have is that we always play each other and we have high level matches," he said. "Argentina and Brazil don't have that level of competition in South America, the football is not as developed as in Europe, that is why most recent World Cup winners have been Europeans."

What Mbappé overlooked is that only two members of the victorious Argentina squad play their club football outside Europe, goalkeeper Franco Armani, who is with River Plate in Argentina and Thiago Almada of MLS team Atlanta United. Neither started a match in Qatar, Armani failing to take the field in any of Argentina's games and Almada only making a brief appearance as a substitute in the match against Poland.

All other members of the squad are playing in top European leagues.

Some claim that the mockery of Mbappé stems from Messi's name being used in vain after France won the World Cup in Russia in 2018.

During a special ceremony at the Stade de France near Paris after the tournament, France players sang a song about N'Golo Kanté, a midfielder who proved a key part of their success.

Translated, the song says, "He's little, he's sweet, he stopped Leo Messi."

The video is now being shared on social media again with some suggesting that the Argentine celebrations are "karma" for the French players' song.

At the time that the song was sung Messi and Mbappé were not teammates, however, the Argentine only having joined PSG in 2021.

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