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| Kylian Mbappe |
The words travelled to Clairefontaine as rapidly as they were dispensed on a podcast in Spain. “We hope that Kylian Mbappe will have the same reasoning as Jude Bellingham,” Jose Manuel Otero, a member of Real Madrid’s board of directors, told Remontada Blanca.
The subject, as it has been for three years, was the France captain’s future. If that talking point feels stale, the framing with Bellingham offers a fresh slant that Real are happy to play on and which has pierced ‘Team Mbappe’.
The excellence, rocketing status, and Ballon d’Or priming of the England midfielder is not just headline news in the Spanish capital and England.
Telefoot, the leading French football broadcaster and rights holder for the national team’s games, dedicated a show to Bellingham titled ‘La Nouvelle Star,’ with Zinedine Zidane, Eduardo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouameni all sharing their thoughts on “le joueur phare de ce debut de saison” – the flagship player at the start to the season.
That segment on the talent “hors norme” – extraordinary – is sharply contrasted by another programme offering analysis into Mbappe’s stuttering campaign, which was the major question put to France coach Didier Deschamps ahead of the European Qualifier against the Netherlands.
“With everything Kylian had during this summer, he has the right to have, in the hellish pace of matches, a period when he is a little less good and a little less effective,” he replied.
In France, they talk of two versions of Mbappe: the dynamic force before his decision not to activate his one-year option with PSG, leading to a now partially resolved toxic dispute with the club, and a jaded version afterwards.
In Madrid, they read the situation differently and trace the forward’s stumble back to May 2022 when, on the verge of joining Real, he opted to sign a new contract with PSG instead. At the Spanish giants, they openly declare Bellingham’s brilliance not just as a testament to his talent, but to making the right choice – unlike Mbappe.
Real’s pitch to both players was based on two major tenets: you can win the Ballon d’Or with us, you will create history with us. As one executive told Sky Sports News: “Our message is simple, ‘of course there are other options, we are the best one. You can enjoy that knowledge with us, or you can regret from the outside’.”
In the podcast this week, Otero offered another nod. “Mbappe will achieve glory when he arrives at Real Madrid,” he said. “Otherwise, he will wander… It looks like PSG is less powerful than before.”
Newcastle’s 4-1 pulverising of the French champions in the Champions League may render that final line something of an understatement. PSG are attempting to transform and create a new face with chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi asking for patience.
The overriding feeling in France is that Mbappe has run out of it. His decision not to use his one-year option at the club despite the noise, heat and punishment he knew it would bring, instead leaving him as a free agent in the summer, speaks to that.
There is a growing belief that Mbappe will leave at the end of the season but forego any loyalty bonuses owed to him.
“That is how it is looking and what very strong sources are telling us,” L’Equipe’s Loic Tanzi says. “The communication from Mbappe’s side is ‘we never said that we don’t want to renew. Never ever, we just said we don’t want to use the option on the current deal and we don’t want to leave this summer.’ Kylian even said that you never know how a year will go at a club like PSG.
“The decision at the moment from Kylian is not to discuss a new contract. There is no discussion now with the club on that. But during the course of the year, PSG will try again and see how it goes. The player will have the final say, he has the power.”
Mbappe’s gift and curse is that he means everything: to his club, to his country and to our vision of how the new era of football should play out.
Witnessing him at close quarters provided a portrait of a star with the world at his feet but a heaviness on his shoulders.
This is Kylian.
As Mbappe emerged to a furious chorus of shuttering lenses, jogging slowly and then cantering through the tree-lined path at Clairefontaine during the last international break, a description his mother once used snapped into focus.
Fayza Lamari would observe her son had “become like Justin Bieber” after his landscape-shifting breakthrough as an 18-year-old at Monaco.
The rest of Mbappe’s France team-mates were already on the pitch along with the coaching staff for an open training session attended by thousands.
The photographers and broadcast camera crews, though, faced the opposite direction in anticipation of the visuals they needed, the visuals they wanted, the je ne sais quoi.
Thierry Henry, recently appointed coach of the country’s U21 side, was on a neighbouring pitch overseeing an intense tactical workout, but he hardly registered.
The attention was clear and undisturbed, in sync with the cries of the crowd: ‘Kylian, Kylian, Kylian.’
Finally, he was in shot. Finally, the show could start. Finally, it truly felt like Les Bleus.
Lamari nailed the comparison to Bieber in one major sense; Mbappe is a bonafide superstar, the celebrity.
Where there is a difference – an escalation of the pressure, the greater importance – is the responsibility the player has to French football, the post Messi-Ronaldo era of the sport, his club, and to his country beyond the sport.
At 24, he’s had to wear so many expectations that it is understandable when he is worn out. “Kylian Mbappe just wants to play football,” an official from the French Football Federation says.
“He wants to be – and he is – the best footballer in the world. With that, the problem comes that he is also everything to everyone in the country. A tool for politics, a calm voice during rioting, the symbol of hope for his [hometown] Bondy and suburbs like it.
“He is a company, a brand. The leader. He is very strong, very clear in his mind, but it is a heavy pressure. We saw what happened over the summer was hard for him. We were worried about Kylian the footballer, but more Kylian the human.”
The reference to Mbappe’s spat with PSG, when the club froze him out and threatened to sell him for turning down the contract option before a resolution was found, had dominated the FFF’s thoughts.
High-level discussions were held over how to keep their captain match fit, motivated and happy if PSG stuck to their word and kept the 24-year-old among the “loft” – the bomb squad without a first-team future that also included Julian Draxler, Gini Wijnaldum and Leandro Paredes.
“Mbappe’s situation this summer did not help anyone: not him, nor his club, nor me, nor the national team,” Deschamps would admit.
“It’s so much the better that the situation has normalised.”
In truth, there was confidence in the France set-up that there would be a speedy solution, primarily because “Kylian Mbappe just wants to play football.”
PSG knew this too. It was their greatest trump card. “One hundred per cent once Kylian realised that the club were serious about not using him for games, he took action,” explains Tanzi.
“He understood that if nothing changed, he would’ve stayed in the stands, maybe the bench at least during the first few months of the season. Kylian cannot be himself without football, it is his joy. So he told the club, ‘OK, let’s speak again, let’s try and find a solution.’
“And that was his decision, because at the end, the discussion was not between his entourage and the club. It was only between him and the president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi.”
Team Mbappe
The word ‘entourage’ in this industry can elicit images of a wide crew of people, especially concerning such a blockbuster figure.
Mbappe’s circle is notoriously small, in comparison, and has been shed over the years. This is instructive in explaining why throughout the summer standoff with his employers, there was only one side of the story carried by media outlets in France and beyond: PSG’s.
Bar the player, who has the final say on all matters, the most critical person in his trusted core is his mother, Lamari. Senior Real Madrid officials refer to her as ‘La jefa’ – the boss – although she counters that at every opportunity, pointing out she works for Mbappe and “he is in charge.”
Previous coaches like Antonio Riccardi would agree. At six, the kid who would insist he was “born to football, for football” could belt out La Marseillaise and would say it was in preparation to represent the national team at a World Cup.
Mbappe absorbed Spanish and English lessons at school with a focus on how he would address the media as a professional player, even holding mock press conferences as a pre-teen.
“Kylian had no doubt of where and how far he wanted to go in football,” Riccardi noted.
As far back as 2018 though, one former sporting director of a Premier League club was wise that “if you want to get in Mbappe’s ear, you have to get his mum onside.”
Since the attacker won the World Cup, Lamari’s influence has been greater than that of Wilfried, the forward’s father from whom she separated in 2021 and who initially sketched his footballing direction as coach of Bondy’s U15s.
Their contrasting personalities and approaches to Mbappe’s career are understood to have been helpful in ensuring situations are maximised.
Former professional handball player Lamari is the exacting negotiator who does not give clubs an inch. Cameroon-born Wilfried is described as the “soother” who ensures relationships with power brokers don’t turn sour.
Long before this equilibrium saw Real Madrid and PSG contort in ways they’ve never previously done to secure a signing – the former by ceding image rights, the latter permitting only Mbappe the option of an incredibly lucrative two-year contract, giving him all the power – Nike were supplying him with free boots from the age of 10 and locked him into a proper deal at 12.
Back then he attended a trial at Chelsea, who wanted to see him develop further before making a commitment. Lamari told them they’d regret that decision.
At 14, as illustrated in his graphic novel ‘Je m’appelle Kylian,’ Mbappe was meeting his idol Cristiano Ronaldo and had an audience with Zidane as Real’s long pursuit began.
“Maybe you can say it’s easy to do a great negotiation when you are representing such an obvious talent,” says an agent from CAA, specialising in France. “But it can be a lot more complex because from a very young age, there are people who want to have their tentacles in the situation to profit somehow.
“You can have clubs behaving with more aggression and cunning means, because they really want the player. I have to really give Mbappe’s family credit. It’s not just about the deals – and by the way, what they got out of PSG, wow – but they do not let outside influences corrupt their project.”
Leading into last year’s World Cup, Zlatan Ibrahimovic fired a broadside at Lamari and Wilfried, believing they had convinced Mbappe to snub Real and stay in Paris. “So his parents become lawyers, agents, coaches,” the Swede told Canal Plus.
“From one thing, they become another. And that’s the problem. That’s when you lose your self-discipline and who you are.
“Today with this new generation, the parents, dad, mom who you want, they think they have become stars.
“They talk in the newspapers. But who do you think you are? Shut up. It is up to your son, the player, to work and have discipline.”
The pair laughed off the criticism as jealousy and Ibrahimovic courting headlines. It did not frazzle them: they serve their son, “not outside opinions”.
Mbappe’s parents are aided by the lawyer Delphine Verheyden, hired in 2015 over five other legal experts despite them having experience of the football industry. Their downfall was being enamoured by the commission they stood to make – even when the player was just 16.
Verheyden, who represents some of France’s great Olympians, did not care for the sport nor a cut of big contracts: she would charge Team Mbappe her usual hourly rate. For the past five years, she has been considered part of the player’s ‘equipe de force,’ chiefly with Lamari.
Kylian’s younger brother, Ethan, in PSG’s academy and his adopted sibling, Jires Kembo Ekoko, who is also a professional footballer, complete the inner circle.
The initials of each of the family member’s first names make up KEWJF – the company which was born to handle Mbappe’s public relations and commercial obligations and boasts a turnover in the multi-millions.
Agence Patricia Goldman, an independent communications consulting agency specialising in image strategy and media relations, advises some of the biggest companies in the world like Coca-Cola… and advises Mbappe.
If there was one curious move made by this juggernaut team over the summer, it was the choice of silence during the standoff with PSG, which allowed the club to fully control the narrative over the situation.
Part of this was the suggestion that by leaving as a free agent, Mbappe would cripple the club financially, putting them in the position where they would need to sell off some of his team-mates.
“It was unfair coverage because Mbappe’s entourage chose not to speak so we didn’t have information from his side,” Tanzi explains.
“That was a problem, we only had one version which was the club’s. Obviously, they will have to tell us what is in their best interests. I do think it was a mistake on Mbappe’s side because they should have at least spoken to the press off the record to clarify some points and it would have helped with making the supporters more understanding too.
“What we were told is Kylian told the club he won’t use his option to extend. That was the communication and they said there was nothing more to add.”
There has been disappointment from those covering France that Mbappe has swerved doing the traditional pre-match press conferences in his capacity as skipper alongside Deschamps for months.
He does not want his future, nor the fall-out over the summer, to distract from the national team. What he has to say about or to PSG will come in time. He does not want to be misinterpreted or misrepresented.
Six months ago, Mbappe blasted the club for using a standard in-house interview with him as part of a marketing campaign to sell season tickets. He felt his image and brand were being taken advantage of.
“PSG is not Kylian Saint-Germain,” he wrote as part of a post on Instagram.
In truth, in Paris, it’s all about Mbappe. In France now, he is their symbol of football.
Not “like Justin Bieber”, because he is more important. But bigger than Bellingham? Not right now, while the midfielder’s star rises in Madrid and Mbappe – for the time being anyway – is on the outside looking in.
