There are a series of images that have been circulating for a long time, with a 13-year-old Kylian Mbappé appearing in his Bondy room, surrounded by a homemade wallpaper composed of images of Cristiano Ronaldo. The first thing you realize is how well groomed they are, suspended conscientiously as through an expert in Tetris. The moment is that almost each and every one of them presents the Portuguese icon dressed in white from Real Madrid.
The show’s greatest popular symbol represents Mbappé’s mendacity on his bed with his chin resting on his hands, his gaze looking for his endless future. Six years later, Mbappé world champion, ultimate World Cup goalscorer and arguably the most valuable player on the planet. Even Cristiano Ronaldo, Mbappé’s teenage inspiration, couldn’t say that.
His long career had come, but there was still much work to be done.
“My ambition is to go further,” Mbappé said after France’s triumph in Russia two years later. “As far as my perspective permits me, to my limits. Array.. Winning such a young World Cup opens other doors. Now I have to keep working. I’m alone at the beginning of the road.”
For years it has been assumed that his direction would eventually (and perhaps quickly) lead to Madrid. The Spanish giants are the popular gold of football, and not only used Ronaldo the most impressive years of Mbappé, but once played, and then guided, the other hero of Mbappé’s formation years: Zinedine Zidane. Mbappé once admitted that he enjoyed Zidane as much as a child, asked his hairdresser to shave a bald man in the maximum sensitivity of his head.
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Real Madrid has a lot to be Mbappé’s destination, both before and since arriving at Paris Saint-Germain from Monaco in the summer of 2017.
Zidane said Mbappé “always said his dream was to play for Real Madrid.” Mbappé’s father, Wilfried, once told France Football that his son “is a Real Madrid fan and that his idol is Cristiano Ronaldo.”
But nothing definitive came from the phenomenon itself. Good luck locating a date in which Mbappé explicitly says that he is either a madridist, or that he has committed to stick to Ronaldo and Zidane in the Spanish capital. Ronaldo’s massive character and his meteric good fortune at the Santiago Bernabéu may have been the inspiration for Mbappé, but it also smells like idols from years of formation with wide-eyed eyes. Kids love superheroes. How many millions of people respected Michael Jordan in the 1990s? How many of the millions continued to cheer the Bulls after Jordan left?
“I admired him when he was younger, but he finished,” Mbappé told Marca, a striker in the PSG Champions League circular 16 in early 2018. “Now I’m going to the Bernabéu to play and win.”
PSG lost, as it did in the Champions League and as it continued until this week when it finally qualified for name adjustment after seven consecutive errors in the 16-year circular. Two years after betting on a World Cup final at the age of 19, Mbappé will face Bayern Munich on Sunday in Lisbon, Portugal, at the largest club festival in history. And that’s what makes your fandom, your motivation and everything in your football center relevant.
Because if this ending gives the strength of the stars, it lacks sympathetic scenarios. Are these stories still necessary? No, not if Mbappé’s old room is a sign. But they are a great component of what attracts long-term enthusiasts and players to the game. If soulless excellence were all that encouraged us, we would be happy to see computers play chess. What about the Sunday game it inspires? Bayern is in fact a worthy finalist. It is a brilliantly built team that plays a dynamic and virtually unbeatable football. It is also a five-decade dynasty that aspires to its sixth European title. It is the fourth richest club on the planet and has been absorbing almost all of the oxygen in the Bundesliga for years. Encouraging Bayern is like encouraging Amazon.
Then there is the PSG, which gained international notoriety ten years ago thanks to Qatar’s generosity. As a rule, in a situation like Sunday, a finalist for the first time would be the selection of neutrals. But watch Parisians spend freely, show monetary fair play and laugh at French football year after year, and then drown out with the Champions League year after year, while behaving as much or more as an ostentatious appendix to the Qatari government. ile-de-France, it has not touched the soul.
If football is meant to be the game of the people, if the clubs are meant to be an extension of their community, then the latter did not overlook this memo.
That’s where Daniele De Rossi and LeBron James come in. They come to mind because they include what can be the sentimental situation of the Champions League final. It’s there if we’re in favor or if we wait long enough.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated four years ago, De Rossi questioned the roots, duty and destiny that connected him to AS Roma, his hometown club. He was a World Cup champion who had been courted through Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester United. But he stayed in Rome (except for a few matches with Boca Juniors before retiring), watching the last rounds of the Champions League on television, because the prospect of a trophy there meant more than a dozen elsewhere.
Sometimes, on my couch, I think, “If I hadn’t been born in Rome, I would never be a fan of Rome.” I would never feel this kind of duty, this duty, with my fans, my other people, my city.” For me, a smart player, [go] can be less difficult for sure. But the other aspect of the coin is that I enjoyed being here. I like to [make] satisfied my other people – for one game, for only 3 games. I love seeing them satisfied. “”
A few years after taking his talent to South Beach, James discovered that he had a more holistic inspiration from Northeast Ohio (“Do you know that Cleveland is wonderful for the whole family?”). It was written on his face in June 2016, moments after the Cavaliers won Cleveland’s first primary sports name in more than a century. James doesn’t seem to have grown up as a Cavs fan. Like Mbappé, he encouraged through excellence. It was the Cowboys of the 1990s who seduced, not the Browns of the 1990s. But despite this, like De Rossi, James was drawn and indebted to the place where he had grown up. He was looking to share something special with his peers.
There were headaches and dramas around James’ return and his time at the Cavs, but the trophy seemed to be the value paid. That name meant everything. In fact, he facilitated the transition to Los Angeles. He’ll probably make the most of life there, but he’ll never do anything for the Lakers, the REAL Madrid of the NBA, that’s as significant or legendary.
Similarly, what would Mbappé have to do in Madrid to be welcomed into the pantheon of the big clubs? What can he do there too that has never been done? He still has that chance in Paris. And that’s probably where the romance at the end of Sunday lies. He is still young and shy or un hired when he addresses the media. His room was not decorated with PSG flags. He was never an ultra. He doesn’t have a Eiffel Tower tattoo. But there are symptoms that Mbappé likes to play at the club, which means something to him, even if he hasn’t made progress in his academy, and that he values the roots and the community. The PSG is the only primary team in the capital, and there were enthusiasts and neighbors who supported them long before Qatar arrived. The Champions League has to mean everything to them, and there’s a city boy who can turn him in (the PSG kicked nine foreigners in the semi-final against RB Leipzig).
“Being here is like going home,” he told The Telegraph after joining PSG three years ago. “I used to walk into this stadium when I was a kid watching games. I’m a football fan, a kid who enjoyed football. And when you’re a kid from Paris, there are only two stadiums: the Stade de France or the Parc des Princes, and that’s what makes Paris so special. There is only one club in Paris, so each and every Parisian child follows Paris Saint-Germain. And if this kid has cash in his pocket, he comes to the games here.
PSG might not be Mbappé’s life, but it’s definitely a component of his life. And as he grew up playing in Bondy, a working-class suburb in the north of the city, a link to the domain and its population formed that made it need to be repaid. He donated his World Cup winnings, about $500,000, to a charity that provides sports opportunities for local youth with disabilities. In January, he launched his own initiative, “Inspired through KM,” which aims to sponsor 98 young Parisians, “until they start their professional lives,” he said.
If it turns out that Mbappé doesn’t like to play at the PSG, or has his eye on the door of the Parc de Princes, you can say that he likes to play for Parisians. When Mbappé left Monaco in 2017, the club’s vice president, Vadim Vasilyev, told Telefoot: “Kylian explained to me that deep down, it was too early to go to a foreign country. He said, “I only played for a year in my country. I’m from Paris. I don’t need to leave my country like this. I need to be a wonderful player here. »
But there have also been moments, especially in recent times, when it turns out to be blooming in the PSG. After some conflicting messages sent hypotheses and annoyed the fan base, Mbappé told BeIN Sports last month that he intended to spend the 2020–21 season in Paris (his contract expires in 2022).
“The club’s 50th anniversary is a year for the club, the fans, all of them. So I’ll be there no matter what,” he said, showing his appreciation for the local cultural importance of PSG. “I’ll go bring him back. Trophies with the team and give the most productive of me.” This week he said PSG’s wardrobe had the “same vibe” as France’s two summers ago.
It would be difficult to say that, on a purely physical and technical level, the most productive of himself is more likely to be perfected at Real Madrid or Liverpool (Jungen Klopp would have asked). PSG is indisputable in France. But there is also something specific and only seductive in the search for this specific team to win this specific festival that distinguishes Mbappé’s path towards Sunday’s final. For the world, PSG would possibly be the Qatari club of the new rich. But for Mbappé, his friends and his family, it’s just the team that represents his city. This was before the arrival of Qatar, at a time when the PSG had only two Ligue 1 titles to its credit. And that will be the case if the owners one day abandon their marketing trick and move on. There are tens of thousands for those who PSG is not a Jordan-branded duty-free store. It’ll be a laugh on Sunday to think Mbappé plays for them.
It’s more commonly speculative, of course. We cannot see the head or heart of internal Mbappé, and it is unfair to expect his motivation to conform to the attempt of a stranger to infuse the latter high-level with fundamental and non-public issues. But you can expect, and this can take a romantic walk to the PSG-Bayern. This would actually bring some other bumpy bankruptcy into Mbappé’s young but richly compelling story. He may eventually win the 14th, 15th and 16th Champions League crown for Real Madrid. But none of them will be valued the first one celebrated through their friends and neighbors.