Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have both returned to the football pitch and, suddenly, everything seems alright again.
With the two superstars not getting any younger, football fans had every right to feel aggrieved that the coronavirus pandemic robbed them of the opportunity to watch the two greats do what they do best.
Fortunately, the 2019/20 season was only halted, rather than cancelled meaning we watch the two greats compete for trophies between now and the end of the season.
Ronaldo’s Juventus reached the Coppa Italia final, are still in the Champions League and are set to win another Serie A title.
Meanwhile, Messi’s Barcelona are top of La Liga and also still in the Champions League.
Come January, they could well be doing battle for yet another Ballon d’Or award.
The sad truth is that both Ronaldo, 35, and Messi, 33 later this month, are at the twilight of their careers.
The pair are the greatest players to have played the game and the sport will be poorer without them.
With 11 Ballon d’Ors between them with only Luka Modric ruining their duopoly in the last 12 years, it begs the question: who will be the heir to their thrones?
There’s obviously a few names that spring to mind but the most obvious one is 21-year-old Kylian Mbappe - who is already the second most expensive player in history and has already scored in a victorious World Cup final.
In fact, when Mbappe turned 19, he had scored 52 club goals compared to Messi’s 26 and Ronaldo’s 17 at the same age.
Was Mbappe already better than Messi and Ronaldo at that age?
Well, a quite brilliant video created two years ago tried to disprove those figures - racking up more than 35 million views. The video titled: “Mbappé is Good but... Messi & Ronaldo were Monsters at 19!” shows just how good Ronaldo and Messi were before turning 20.
Ronaldo was running riot in the Premier League with Manchester United, while Messi was already one of the best players in the world with Barcelona. They already were the standout players in their respective leagues - the two strongest leagues in world football.
While Mbappe was incredible - and still is - at the age of 19, you simply can’t compare him to Messi and Ronaldo.