The question is what kind of player Mbappe will become. His fame and wealth make him one of those cautionary tales about a teenager who gets his hands on everything too soon?
This summer, the young player of the French national team suddenly became famous around the world.
Kylian Mbappé on the cover of TIME magazine
The most expensive teen player in history
During the last days of summer in Paris, Kylian Mbappé sat in the stadium, trying to find the best words to describe the turning point in his life over the past year.
Football talent has helped Mbappe become famous worldwide within just a few months. You make more money than you can imagine. Nike is designing sneakers named after him. LeBron James – world famous basketball player – wants to meet you. And when he stepped out onto the street, fans begged for his autograph.
But there is the fact that he is only 19 years old – which makes things much more complicated.
“My life has been completely turned upside down,” said Mbappe as he sat on a wooden bench atop PSG’s Parc dé Princes stadium – where he is a striker.
“I’m happy and I’m living the life I’ve always dreamed of.” But, he also said: “Maybe I missed something else. I didn’t have the normal moments during my teenage years, like hanging out with friends, having a good time.”
Mbappe becomes the most expensive “teen” player in transfer history
Previously, Mbappe was rated by millions of European fans as the best footballer of his generation. Outside of Europe, however, he was little known until 2018 – when his talent brought global fame.
Mbappe’s Instagram account now has nearly 20 million followers – double the number of tennis queen Serena Williams.
The name Mbappe began to be discussed last September, when the owners of PSG agreed to pay an impressive figure – $ 207 million over five years for the AS Monaco club to bring Mbappe back to his hometown of Paris. They offered a salary of $ 1.7 million / month for the player who was only 18 years old at the time. Although PSG did not confirm this number, it was widely reported in the French media. The numbers make Mbappe the most expensive teen player in history – right after he graduated from high school and got a driver’s license.
Looking back, that money now looks like a legitimate theft. Mbappe scored 13 goals in France’s final Ligue 1 season, winning the trophy for PSG. This achievement earned him a place in the French national team to attend the World Cup in Russia. It was there that Mbappe became the star of the world.
At the medal ceremony, French President Emmanuel Macron stood quietly hugging Mbappe and almost burst into tears. More than 1 million people poured into the streets of Paris, clogging the avenue de Champs-Élysées. Mbappe said he barely knew what had happened until the team made their way through screaming crowds in the streets in an open-top bus the next day. “We realized we had made a mark in history,” he said.
Fairy tales in the suburbs of Paris
For many French people, Mbappe also embodies a fairy tale
The question is what kind of player Mbappe will become. His fame and wealth make him one of those cautionary tales about a teenager who gets his hands on everything too soon? Or will he be sober enough to develop his s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s and set an example for soccer-loving kids around the world?
“Mbappe has an explosive pace. It’s amazing that he can do that at this age,” said Richard Fitzpatrick, a sports journalist who has followed Mbappe’s career for many years. “But I will still issue warnings. It’s too early to talk about his future.”
For many French, Mbappe is more than the embodiment of an extraordinary footballer. He is also the embodiment of a fairy tale – a poor 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 becomes a millionaire.
His story begins in the suburbs of Paris, where rows of ruined houses surround the magnificent city.
In fact, there are eight players in the French national team like Mbappe – the 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren of African immigrants, 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 into low-income families, including stars Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kanté and Blaise Matuidi.
“That’s right! The Africans have won the World Cup!” – presenter of the Daily Show – Trevor Noah, a South African said so after the victory of the French team.
“They are French citizens,” replied the French ambassador to the US Gérard Araud. “They are proud of their country.”
However, on Paris’s Bondy street – where Mbappe was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 and raised by Cameroonian father Wilfried and Algerian mother – winning the World Cup is more personal than patriotic.
Mbappe donated his World Cup earnings – worth $500,000 to a charity that teaches sports to 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren with disabilities
The joy of Bondy Street is the joy of a boy who was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 and raised here but has made a mark. Mbappe left here for Monaco in 2013 at the age of 14. His family currently lives in central Paris together.
Five years on, Mbappe no longer wants to live in this suburb. He realized that his newfound fortune was a stark contrast to his 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hood. He donated his World Cup earnings – worth $500,000 to a charity that teaches sports to 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren with disabilities and illnesses – an amount that he admits “didn’t change my life, but change the lives of 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren.”
Leaving difficulties and deprivations behind, Mbappe admits that his years living in Bondy have planted the seeds for his career. Many kids here have been playing football almost every day since they were little. His father used to be a coach for a Bondy sports club. “Bondy is a city that breathes football,” said Mbappe.
On one side of a high-rise building in Bondy, Nike erected a billboard with Mbappe before the World Cup with the slogan referring to France’s 1998 victory: “98 was a great year for the team. France. That was also the year Kylian was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧.”
A sign showing Mbappe thumbing up covered the 11-story building for months, reading: “Bondy – city of potential”.
Think of your family to keep you ‘on the ground’
Will Mbappe become a good example for football-loving 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren or a bad example when popularity comes too quickly?
The people of Bondy have been attracted to this “potential” since Mbappe’s victory in the World Cup. “All the parents who come to me say, ‘I want my son to be Kylian,’” said Jean-Francois Suner, sporting director of the City of Bondy Athletes Center. This is also the place where Mbappe learned to play football at the age of 6, where his father was a coach.
“I told them it couldn’t happen,” he said as he sat in his cramped office. “I’ve been working here for 37 years, and this is the first time I’ve seen this. I don’t think there will be another one.”
Mbappe has talent and is currently at the peak of the sport, but at any moment that aura can disappear, assuming he has an injury, is the victim of bad behavior on the field. Absolutely anything can happen.
Mbappe reminds people of Neymar – the superstar striker of PSG. The 26-year-old Brazilian often stirs up the press with lavish parties and complacency. As a result, he performed very badly in the World Cup.
Journalist Fitzpatrick said that Neymar should be an example that Mbappe should avoid. “My advice to him is: Be humble, and focus on football.”
With Mbappe, although he is only 19 years old, he does not mistakenly think that the current peak will be forever. “We can be the best and be world champions now. But in four years, people will forget us, because there are others who will come along and do better than us.”
“I know that the biggest stars and the greatest players are the most humble, the most respectful of others,” said Mbappe as an adult. It is important to always be “on the ground”. “You always have to stay lucid,” he said. “There are three elements: respect, humility, and discernment.”
Family is the fulcrum to help Mbappe always “be on the ground”
Some wondered if the sudden fame had brought him down. Fame and pressure come so quickly that it’s hard for anyone of any age. Mbappe says he has little time to mature. Until now, he was still a kid among the older players.
Mbappe says he relies heavily on one thing to keep him “down on the ground”, which is family. That was evident on the afternoon that TIME met him. For hours, his mother, Mrs. Faya, was in a hurry in the backyard. As we set up the camera in the PSG lounge, Mbappe’s 12-year-old brother walked in and out of the room, giggling. Mbappe also has an adopted brother, a Congolese immigrant who plays professionally in Türkiye.
“We are always close to each other. Together at home, around the dinner table. We never gave up on that.” He believes that protection is very important for his career. “They were always there to help me, whether it was my first match at Bondy or now in front of 80,000 spectators. That is real companionship. And I can feel it on the pitch.”
Mbappe says he has always believed in some of the things he learned from his mother. “My mother always told me that, to be a great player, you must first be a great man.”
Mbappe is not yet a fully grown man. And the person he becomes can depend in large part on how he chooses to control his sudden surge of fame. The world will watch that.
