When Kylian Mbappe lines up for Paris St-Germain on Tuesday against Real Madrid he will face the club he will almost certainly join when his contract expires this summer.
While nothing has been confirmed, it would be a major shock if the France striker does not end up in the white shirt he has dreamed of wearing since he was a kid.
The 23-year-old will not say anything for now – at least not until PSG’s Champions League last-16 meeting with the Spanish league leaders is over. By that time, he will hope to have given Real a first-hand view of exactly what they will be getting.
Mbappe, the boy from Bondy in the suburbs seven miles from the centre of Paris, always wanted to play for PSG, but it is also true that he was probably always destined for Madrid, even though it has taken a while to get to this point.
He was wanted by Europe’s elite clubs in 2017 after starring for Monaco. He chose PSG – initially joining on loan in a deal that would ultimately cost the French champions £165.7m – because it was the club of his city, the one supported by most of his friends, the most important club in France at the time.
But it was only ever likely to be a stop in his career. Mbappe admired Cristiano Ronaldo and grew up watching his role model starring for Real. It helps that Mbappe is that rare breed of player who, like the Portuguese, can cope with the intense pressure that comes with being the star name for one of the world’s great clubs.
At 19, having just scored in the final as France won the 2018 World Cup, Mbappe gave an interview in which his mentality became clear. “This is just the start,” he said. “I am here to make history.”
If he carries on with his current form it is difficult to see how he won’t make a huge impact as the main man at the Bernabeu.
Other players have tried and failed to take on the mantle from Ronaldo, who left in 2018 after winning four Champions Leagues in nine years in the Spanish capital. Eden Hazard, whom many thought was destined to do just that, was never strong enough to be anything more than just a fine player on that stage. The extra pressure demanded of superstars not just on the pitch but also as leaders off it can take its toll.
But Mbappe is different. The pursuit of excellence determines that being good will never be enough for him. What he craves – and what Real can potentially give him – is the opportunity to show he is the best of the best.
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Like so many of the best young players today, Mbappe has surrounded himself with family members who conduct much of his business. Team Mbappe is a family organisation, although, unlike some others, all the important decisions are made by Kylian himself.
His parents, Wilfried Mbappe and Fayza Lamari, separated several months ago but are both nonetheless employed in running various aspects of his life. Fayza dedicates her days to looking after her son and prefers to maintain some anonymity. It was his dad who accompanied Kylian to the recent Ballon d’Or awards in Paris.
There, I saw a young man unable to contain his smile when being photographed and sharing space with PSG team-mate Lionel Messi and Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski. He felt, with good reason, he belonged there. As his mother tells him: “We come from Bondy and if you don’t have confidence in yourself, who is going to have it in your place? There is no glass ceiling.”
According to his mother, speaking recently in a rare interview with Le Parisien newspaper, last summer her son took the decision to move to Real to “realise his dream and create history. Kylian wants to be at the centre of a sports project. He needs constant challenges.”
But PSG refused to let him go. Mbappe himself felt he was at a crossroads and was uncertain what to do. His father sided with him staying, while his mother thought maybe it was time to leave. They discussed it together and in the end the easiest solution was to stay until his contract expires this summer. As always, it was Mbappe who had the last word.
The nature of the sporting project, rather than the size of the pay packet, has always been his main motivating factor. He has never been a big spender and has an interesting relationship with money – he never has a credit card or cash on him. Sometimes his mum asks him to take 200 euros with him, to which he replies: “No need, I’m just going to play football.”
Mbappe alternates his life between his father and his mother and has a real need to be close to them, but he also has his own apartment, so has grown up significantly in recent years.
Mum takes care of the legal side of things, of his image, of communication and PR, and any other big projects away from football that he wishes to put in place (some related to helping his home town of Bondy develop). Dad takes care of all things football – talking to agents, to PSG director of football Leonardo, to other presidents. Florentino Perez, Real Madrid’s top man, has got Mbappe’s father’s phone number.
The importance of family was there for all to see on the day he joined PSG in 2017. All of them were there, including his 15-year-old brother Ethan. They arrived together and were sat in the front row and exchanged smiles and looks with Kylian. Wilfried, with a smart dark suit, had the aura of an important person and spoke with the club’s chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi. Fayza kept a discreet place in the proceedings.
Football runs in the family and on 25 June 2021 Ethan signed an “aspiring” contract with PSG in a deal lasting until 2024. Asked if Kylian’s career impacts on that of his little brother, their mother replied: “Of course. For Ethan, the name is already taken. It is impossible to avoid being the brother of Kylian Mbappe.”
Soon, though, Ethan is likely to be the only Mbappe on PSG’s books.
Perhaps ironically, if and when Mbappe does move to Real – the traditional home of the Galacticos – he will have less competition for the title of the team’s central figure than he does in Paris.
At PSG he vies for that accolade with Messi and Neymar. The primary job of PSG manager Mauricio Pochettino has been to ensure harmony exists and on that front he has been very successful. It is not an easy brief – there is an innate difficulty in fostering a team mentality with three anarchic, creative geniuses.
In order to maintain that harmony, all three have to play when fit. But putting those three footballers together into a coherent team structure is an almost impossible challenge.
With a player like Mbappe you need a team that can play with a high rhythm and attack spaces. With Messi you have to give him freedom, play to a slower tempo, build from the back, have the players close together and effectively organise your team around him. And if you have Neymar, with all his genius to beat defenders, you need a team that allows him to do his thing, often unpredictable, and be alert to those moments when he loses the ball. The manager has to put all that together.
Despite being 13 points clear at the top of Ligue 1 there has been criticism of PSG’s performances this season, but Mbappe has said publicly how well he gets on with Pochettino. The doubts surrounding his future, and the confusion that creates in a young mind, could have compromised his ability – or willingness – to focus on the team. But he has probably been PSG’s best player.
After a Covid and injury-affected 2020-21 campaign and after a wobbly start this term, Mbappe is enjoying an excellent season, arguably the best of his career. In 28 league and Champions League matches he has scored 16 goals and provided 10 assists, team-best figures in both categories. His latest goal was a late winner against Rennes on Friday.
Indeed, some commentators in Paris think he has become too big for PSG and a move is necessary to fulfil his ambitions.
When Messi joined last summer, Mbappe was initially worried about how the connection that the Argentina legend and Neymar have had for years would impact on him. But he soon realised it is not as intense as it was when the pair were at Barcelona and it is Mbappe who has gone on to become the major influence in the PSG side this season.
His strength, both physical and mental, coupled with the absence of Neymar because of injury, have led to him becoming the focal point of the team and, should the Brazilian return to the starting line-up, it is the more experienced man who will have to adapt.
Mbappe has played more minutes than the other PSG superstars and as a consequence the side are more comfortable playing to his strengths. In training he looks a cut above everyone and in big games, even if he does not start, he has been their most consistent performer alongside Marquinhos. There is little doubt Mbappe ranks as one of the top five players in the world.
If he does have a weakness it is that he sometimes tries to do everything rather than limit himself to doing those things he does best, such as leading the line. But this season he has become a leader. He still has his own targets, but he has shown he looks at the bigger picture and, despite those earlier doubts, he has made a big effort to help Messi.
After Neymar’s injury, the other two star players found a connection. Mbappe scored against RB Leipzig, then handed over the taking of a penalty to Messi. At the end of that match Mbappe said: “My mission is to get him to help us this season.”
Against Club Bruges in the last group game Mbappe scored two goals before assisting Messi for the first of his two. Against Lille earlier this month they both scored in moves that involved each other.
An illustration of his growing maturity is that Mbappe has not felt isolated by the huge amount of Spanish spoken in the PSG changing room and, when I spoke to him when visiting Paris for the arrival of Messi, I was staggered to have a perfect conversation with him – in Spanish.
Nothing happens by chance in the world of Mbappe, either on or off the pitch. I later found out that languages have always been a passion of his and, in addition to learning Spanish at school, he has also been having private lessons for more than a year.
In a recent interview France legend Thierry Henry teased him, asking why he spoke Spanish in the dressing room, to which he replied: “If you want to be a world star then you shouldn’t limit yourself to just speaking French.”
Those Spanish lessons might come in handy on the pitch against Real Madrid this week – and they could prove even more valuable come the summer.
