On the beautiful carpet of the Molitor hotel, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, Kylian Mbappé’s teams are busy. It’s a big unboxing day in spring 2024, the star is preparing to unveil her wax statue for the Madame Tussauds museum in Berlin. Around the red curtain and the lights, everyone makes sure that the moment is set like clockwork. Nothing should disturb the champion’s afternoon, who will answer the show’s good-natured questions Daily in the process.
The stakes are low, ultimately, but precaution is the golden rule. ” It’ll be OK ? »we can hear. ” Yes, replies a colleague of Mbappé. Anyway, everything is under control. » It’s a habit that we understand and everyone here, after all, is paid for it. But is it even possible to always mark everything? To sweep away all uncertainty, while life is a matter of choices and Kylian Mbappé is plagued by doubt, sometimes.
Not long ago, he forgot to thank Nasser al-Khelaïfi for the Parisian adventure that he was about to end, before going back on his words and sending his thanks to the “president” a few days later.
At a press conference, in the French team jersey, he admitted that “PSG”, in other words the president, wanted to deprive him of matches, like Hatem Ben Arfa or Adrien Rabiot before him.
“The men who saved me were Luis Enrique and Luis Campos, without them I would not have played”, he then says. His friends say they’ve seen him before “head in the bag”. Others speak of the indecision which sometimes animated him. Or his regrets, but rarely as a player, especially as a teenager. When he’s not playing football, he’s tapping cards, laughing, thinking about other things. “There are times when I can behave like a boy my age »he tells France Football at the start of his ascent. “ We set ourselves challenges like: “Who can do that without mom and dad seeing?” Things from kids my age, that is. »
About his career, he thought about a lot of things: leaving for Real Madrid, very early on; or join the club of your dreams later. Qatar has, more than others, the means to change minds and humans, by nature, have a torn mind. Mbappé will weigh the pros and cons until the end, before convincing himself definitively at the start of 2024 to leave France. “ I had made some plans for my careerhe told the magazine again. But as nothing‘happened as expected and I am already much higher than I expected‘imagined a few months ago, it‘is a little difficult to project. Or J‘will I be there in two years? »
At PSG, at the time, and always more important in the French team. It hosts The Team for an interview after Euro 2021 and evokes an etiquette. “That I would love to take off, he confides. That of a kind of guy who controls his career plan. As if in football you could say: “This year I do this, this year I do that.” Every player, big, small, amateur, has aspirations and I am no exception. »
› Kylian Mbappé has The Team :
Things escape him, like everyone else. Small intimate defeats and big personal victories. Resist temptations and give in to some. There have always been many of them, those from football and those from elsewhere, and so many players have found the cemetery of their dreams there. For Mbappé, it was first of all letting himself be convinced by the biggest players, then making a decision. As a teenager, RB Leipzig insisted on signing him, the sporting and academic project was coherent. “But that wasn’t his plan at all”they say in Monaco, when he, 15 years old, confides to a coach: “He, you see, he made a certain choice, he made a mistake. You don’t have to go anywhere. »
When he signed his first professional contract, two planes from major English clubs were waiting on the tarmac at Nice airport.
The leaders of AS Monaco, title and greatness era, remember that everyone ended up trying an approach: Zinédine Zidane, Arsène Wenger, Jürgen Klopp, the cream of the crop, not to mention Pep Guardiola. How not to burst into flames? Wenger seduces him tactically but cannot promise him to be competitive in the Champions League with Arsenal. Guardiola bluffs him. The anecdote is little known: it is 2017 and the Catalan maestro wants to meet the one who caused him so much harm in the round of 16 of the C1. He absolutely wants to convince, takes out a painting and says to young Kylian: “ The first player I put is you. »
The attacker who is not yet an adult does not deflate: “ Where do I play on your team? » Pep will show him diagrams, architect’s plans for a prodigy to conquer. “ If you don’t have the right passes coming your way, you can take it out on me »he told her, before a handshake, then a handful of texts to come. “ City was not a story for him to write »tells us a former ASM employee.
At Real Madrid, he will first say no, due to a lack of available space among Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema or Gareth Bale. The Madrid club will try to convince, first by inviting Wilfried Mbappé to “share quality moments” in Los Angeles, where the Merengue are going to play a few friendly matches; then by trying to sell the Welshman at the end of the transfer window.
› Mbappé will respond to Real:
Because Unai Emery, who traveled to Bondy in the company of a Parisian delegation, works closely with the new prince of French football: promises of playing time even in the event of irregularity; coherent tactical project; association with Neymar and Edinson Cavani. The choice is made and, if it was hard, it will not change again. Later, Mbappé will show himself to the world as he is: full of certainties, but sometimes overcome by perplexity.
Locker room stories tell a little about this dual personality and its limits. Is Mbappé, captain of the Blues, an untouchable and sovereign leader? “It’s unspoken.estimates Martin Buchheit, former performance director of PSG. When you have him with you, he has so much confidence in himself that it shows. He tries lots of things. You hear him say that it’s going to go well, so you tell yourself that it’s going to go well. It’s something a bit like that. »
In the final of the 2022 World Cup, while Argentina leads 2-0, it is he who rallies the troops in the locker room, a rare speech out loud. “When he speaks, he just speaks, says Frédéric Barilaro. I think he sees things all the time. When he says something, it’s clear. He doesn’t have to bark. » “ He’s not someone who’s going to take guys and shake them downjudges another PSG witness. Zlatan scared everyone. Everyone is silenthasit. »
Others see it as a form of limit, of things that escape him, like this other witness to his evolution at PSG: “Neymar always needs to have a squad, while Kylian is far from that. Presnel Kimpembe was unifying, while Mbappé is harder to place. He’s not angry with anyone but he’s not a boss. Does he suffer from it? You’d have to ask him, but we might wonder if there isn’t a limit to his impact on a group. »
He is not the one who shouts or riots, even if most of the people around him note a certain progress in this area.
“ He’s not like Ibraexplains for example Zoumana Camara, but he is a leader in bringing well-being to others. When he is happy, he makes you happy. We feel good by his side. » Nor will he ever be, with the general public, the ultra-expansive entertainer that he is in private. He juggles the need to say little, and the need to express himself properly. His sentimental affairs are a secret garden that is neither displayed on Instagram nor in the privacy of the football group. “ D‘others show the text messages with their conquests, he, this n‘is not his thing »says a regular at Clairefontaine.
Already, at the start of his career, some noted, here a former teammate, that he is “the bon vivant who observes from afar”, even if advancing age has unbridled him. Life as a footballer has also created other doubts, a natural defense mechanism for the rich and famous.
He is wary, maintains his trust in a very restricted circle of people. With those who “connect” on the way of seeing life, it is the friendly idyll: Achraf Hakimi, for example, with whom the understanding was rapid; or Brice Tchaga, trained hairdresser, a talent of the gradient to the point of becoming a Dior ambassador. The Parisian made a name for himself in the football world when one evening, in Monaco, he met Mbappé, the only one to have waited for his plane to be delayed for a long time to get his hair cut. The duo, two boys from the same generation, spend the evening laughing and chatting. They will never leave each other again.
Mbappé has kept some of his lifelong friends, too, like Matthias Mboma, son of Alain, a long-time family friend. After leaving for the United States for a master’s degree in business management, Matthias often appears alongside Kylian. “It’s a pride to see you realize one of your biggest dreams, the one with which you’ve been bothering us for so many years”he laughed after the officialization of the transfer of his ” brother “ at Real Madrid. Others have left the circle for several years. “He who betrays will not stay”tells The Teamin a documentary, the player’s fascitherapist.
In 2021, Sabri Outouia, known as “Zlataneur”, one of Kylian’s best friends, finds himself exfiltrated from the circle. Reason: delivery of information to the press. “It’s true, Kylian and his entourage put it aside, then tweets Fayza, the mother. But he knows why, in fact it would make a great case study when we talk about people around him…” The episode gave rise to a precedent, and rules.
No one other than Fayza, Wilfried and the communications professionals who work for Kylian is authorized to communicate, unless authorized.
“It has already happened that some have been excluded, especially those who felt authorized to speak”notes another source. “Kylian is intelligent about his environment, tells Loïc Badiashile. He knows who was there with him at the start, and who shows up when it starts to explode. He always saw good people and bad people. He was educated in this sense: to detect those who are there for you or for notoriety. » In addition to mistrust, this new world that he has discovered imposes its reality: going to Parc Astérix with his girlfriend amounts to making his presence official; trying to organize a meeting becomes the privatization of a Parisian restaurant. A world, too, where few still dare to tell you the truth.
› In Monaco, it’s a funny but striking example of his baccalaureate, taken for remedial exams. A teacher then called the club:
› Affirmative… “I don’t even know if he knows about this story”laughs a former member of the red and white club.
He plans to resume his studies one day, enjoy the simpler things in life, which he ended up taming in a funny paradox: imposing his choices, his talent, his desires and building an empire ignoring others and their looks; and at the same time notice the existence that we could have had, calmer, more anonymous. “He remains a human being who has harder mornings than others too, swears an employee of his equipment manufacturer Nike. He makes millions, so he can’t have five minutes to himself? He must no longer have any emotions… But in fact, he does! »
Frédéric Barilaro assures that he does not have it “felt happy this season”on and off the field, as “absent and disconnected”. In Madrid, everyone wishes him to rediscover this joviality which enchanted them the moment they met him. “A happy man is more likely to play well than an unhappy man”he confided recently, before playing in the Euro and flying to Spain. Perhaps there will be another man there, in the spotlight? ” You know me, he said one day to a friend, I always wanted to be there. In full light. »
