Stockholm affair, PSG, relationship with the Blues… For the first time in a year, the striker spoke this Sunday, December 8 in the evening. An exercise in style during which he did not give an explanation on the sporting difficulties he encountered at Real Madrid.
A year since he had not spoken outside of the Blues press conferences. This Sunday, December 8, the captain of the France team, Kylian Mbappé, spoke at length on Canal + as part of the program Clique and offered himself a sort of exercise in (grand) panoramic style, with an intensity and liveliness of mind allowing him to carry the piece whatever he said.
On the merits, however, there is something to complain about. An hour of broadcast and not the slightest trace of an explanation on the sporting difficulties in which he struggles, difficulties now publicly diagnosed by his coach at Real Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti: “Real was a childhood dream. I always dreamed of playing there. I went there in the spirit of discovering something else, the equivalent of a leap into the unknown. I had never left France. I told myself that by speaking the language [ce qu’il a fait bien avant de signer à Madrid, ndlr], it was going to help me. But that's not enough. We talk about adaptation, another culture, things to understand… People see us like robots. They turn on their TV on the weekend, watch what's going on, turn the TV off and turn it back on the following weekend. For them, we only exist at that moment; like robotic circles. But players are human beings. They have strengths, weaknesses, doubts, sometimes they lack confidence… I have to connect to a new climate, to a new environment. I always wanted to know where I was, with whom and how. I am learning. Afterwards, I'm used to people talking about me. But when loved ones are impacted… It’s more of a boomerang effect. They hear about burnout, depression… leave it where it is, depression. We're talking about an illness, something serious. Don't mess around with that. And not to be confused with exhaustion, fatigue or sporting disappointment. There are battles that are difficult to fight.”
“Perhaps I made the mistake of confusing everything”
For the rest, we can isolate three highlights. The first relates to the Stockholm affair, certain Swedish newspapers implicating him in a case of sexual violence in the hotel where the player was staying. “I had five days free, I was thinking of going elsewhere, to a place with more media exposure [que la Suède] but the coach [Ancelotti] advised me to find a more discreet base. I was surprised to have been involved by the press, I didn't expect that even though of course I understood for a long time that there were unpredictable things that were going to come into my life. I have received no letter, no official complaint. Nothing. So I am not [aujourd’hui] not concerned. If I am summoned [par un juge ou la police]of course I would go. I have spoken several times since with the person I was with that night. I don't even know if it's her we're talking about [dans l’affaire de violences sexuelles].»
-The second concerns Paris-SG and its relations with Qatar, in a context where the player is demanding 55 million euros in unpaid salaries and various bonuses from his former club. “I may have made the mistake of confusing everything during my last months there. I was in conflict with some people [le président Nasser al-Khelaïfi dans les faits, que Mbappé ne cite jamais] but neither with the supporters, nor with the people who worked daily at the club, nor with my teammates. And I should have conveyed that idea a lot better. When I went to the Elysée [le 27 février] during the dinner attended by His Majesty the Emir of Qatar [Tamim Ben Hamad Al-Thani], I heard on the way, on the radio, that he was about to make me an offer that I couldn't refuse to extend my contract at the club. But I had already had offers “that I couldn’t refuse”, and I had refused them. When I arrived and we greeted each other, the Emir whispered in my ear: “You have decided to leave and I respect it, I thank you for having previously extended [en 2022] and to have played in the World Cup in Qatar under the colors of the Parisian club and I will always be there for you.” It’s not “Kylian against Qatar”. It never happened like that.” Way to put the focus back on his only real tormentor, to hear him: Nasser al-Khelaïfi.
“I left my nose there”
Mbappé, however, indicated that he would have been ready to extend at the club last season if his little brother Etan, collateral victim of Kylian's departure to Madrid since Paris-SG fired him immediately, had asked him to do so. What the current Lille striker has not done. Last notable point: the Blues. About which Mbappé affirmed that he never really wanted the captain's armband that coach Didier Deschamps gave him in March 2023: on this precise point it still seems that the Madrid striker cheerfully revisits the way in which the facts happened. are unrolled. Mbappé, on the other hand, confirmed that his sidelining during the November rally had been decided by Deschamps, and that he did not have to express himself on reasons belonging to the coach. More generally, he explained that he had taken a lot, a lot, on himself in the French context, without really understanding why he was the first to suffer. “I even left my nose there [lors du dernier Euro, après un contact contre un défenseur autrichien]. I often hear that I don't care about the France team, but what? I sometimes went there not being 100%, and I gave what I had to give. During Euro 2021, people lied about me from the first to the last day. And I always let myself do it. Because it was the French team.”
