There was absolutely no shame in Nathaniel Atkinson getting a bit of a runaround from Kylian Mbappe at the World Cup the other night.
After all, if one of the world’s top three players - which Mbappe surely is - plays at the top of his game, there’s no right back on the planet that can live with him. And the young Hearts defender stuck to his task brilliantly, didn’t let his head go down and did plenty of good things in the game as Australia went down fighting to the French.
I really liked Atkinson’s honesty when he spoke about the experience later. No hiding, no whining, just an acceptance that when a guy like Mbappe is on song there’s not much a mere mortal can do other than dance to his tune. As he said, there’s a reason why the PSG superstar is on $200m a year and he, Atkinson, is playing for Hearts. That’s absolutely no slight on his current employers, by the way. It’s just a cold, hard truth.
