Kylian Mbappe could have been Tottenham star Harry Kane’s north London rival had Arsene Wenger signed him for Arsenal as prolific pair prepare to face off in England vs France clash at World Cup

England’s World Cup fixture against France on Saturday will see two of football’s most prolific attackers going head-to-head.

Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe will be vying to prove themselves as the superior forward in Qatar on Saturday night, live on talkSPORT, however that rivalry was very close to extending across north London.

While England’s skipper is the ultimate one-club man having progressed through Tottenham’s academy before becoming their talisman figure, Mbappe came through the youth set-up in Monaco, where he was tipped for stardom early on.

His career path could have been very different though if Arsene Wenger had got his way, with the Arsenal boss confirming that he had held talks with the starlet regarding a move to the Gunners.

Cut from the same cloth as Thierry Henry, Mbappe could have perfectly honed his talents under Wenger’s guidance, but a move to England wasn’t to be.

“We can talk about Mbappe, I was at his home when he was undecided whether to extend his contract with Monaco,” Wenger told beIN Sports.

“He could have come to Arsenal for free. I would say every club is full of histories like that.

“You go to Milan, to Manchester, Arsenal, Chelsea there are these kind of stories everywhere.”

Signing Mbappe on a free transfer at that stage of his career would arguably have been seen as one of the biggest bargains in football, particularly given how his market value has soared in recent years.

Those head-to-heads with Kane at Tottenham and Mbappe at Arsenal had the potential to be legendary, but now we’ll get to see the duo on the same pitch on the biggest stage in Qatar.

So far this season, Mbappe has scored 20 goals in 19 appearances, while Kane had 13 in 22 in all competitions – meanwhile in the World Cup the French star has five goals and two assists, with Kane having one goal and three assists.

Debates will rumble on about who is the more lethal marksman in front of goal, but one man’s opinion on the matter is more credible than most, Mauricio Pochettino.

Pochettino knows both players inside-out having led Kane at Tottenham before going on to manage Mbappe with Paris Saint-Germain.

He told The Athletic: “I saw Harry as more of an old-fashioned No 9 from the beginning. Perhaps because of his physical characteristics and the way he moved. But we helped him to run, helped him to press, and to move into different areas, using different spaces on the pitch.

“So he was a player who could play in the box or outside it, because his capacity to understand the game is amazing. He senses what the team needs, and when it’s under pressure he can drop into midfield, to help the team to progress the ball up the pitch or to provide assists.

“And if you want him to do that, he needs the capacity to run, rather than just being a pivot in the box. So we improved his capacity to suffer. To play like that, you need legs. And if Harry drops into those positions in the World Cup quarter-final on Saturday, it will be difficult for France to stop.”

Pochettino added: “When I first met Kylian, he was really, really confident — completely different to a young Harry.

“Of course Kylian has an ego, but in a good way. All big players have big egos. It’s impossible not to. He is arrogant in the right, in the best, way.

“So I found at PSG that if Kylian made a mistake, I could explain why to him, what we needed him to do, so that he could try to improve for every single game. Maybe the media gives a different image, but the reality is that he was a really nice guy to manage.

“And unlike Harry, Kylian is a player who does not need to be connected with the overall game. He can be there for five or even 10 minutes, not involved in the game, not involved with his team, and then just appear, do something amazing, and win you the match.

“Harry is someone who does need to feel connected with the game. But Kylian is the opposite. If he doesn’t touch the ball, he’s relaxed.

“He’s so confident in himself, he knows that when the ball reaches him, he is still going to beat his opponent and do what he knows best.”

With both players at very different stages of their careers, not to mention their hugely different playing styles, it would be unfair to draw a comparison on the duo.

However with Kane very much in his prime years and Mbappe frighteningly still improving, it means that the motivation for both players is very different going into Saturday’s match.

So as we watch these goalscoring greats going head-to-head at the World Cup, we can only dream of how intense this rivalry would have been if they’d been leading the charge on both sides of north London.