So… listen to this… everyone is going nuts about Lamine Yamal right now… and… rightfully so, but… when they act like they’ve never seen something like this before… There's only one thing on my mind: Have you guys forgotten about teenage Mbappé already? . .
. I mean, god damn… you could literally make a good argument that he was a better player back then… than he is now… At 17 years of age, he played a season while mostly coming off the bench and still hit 40 goal contributions, averaging one every 65 minutes… Yamal has been averaging one every 141… not to mention that while one went pretty much trophyless… the other damn near dragged Monaco to a Champions League final, traumatizing that PSG superteam so much along the way that, afraid their rule over the French League would be over… they went out, splashed 180 million to sign him and proceed to reclaim every single domestic trophy available the moment he got there… only for him to, then, make all of that seem irrelevant, going out with the national team and pulling off the greatest World Cup performance by a teenager since 1958 Pelé… Look, there’s still time for Yamal to change this and I hope he does… but, at this moment, there is no denying it… Mbappé is still the single greatest wonderkid Europe has seen in the 21st century… I don’t think some of you understand just how crazy his rise was… When the guy was 14 years old, he was handed a school assignment… He had to design the cover of a magazine… Other kids didn’t give it much thought, they just slapped a picture of some celebrity on it and got going… Mbappé did something else, he recreated Time Magazine’s layout and posed for the picture himself, writing his name on it next to the words: “the best young player in the world”. .
. that was his vision since the day he was born, no matter the circumstances… At times, Mbappé projects this appearance of a perfect clean cut boy who’s never seen much hardship aside from counting calories and waking up early to get to training but really… he grew up in Bondy, the poorest area of Paris where at 7 years of age, he witness as the streets he lived in went up in flames as a 3 week long riot saw 8000 cars set on fire and 3000 protesters arrested… The only other thing he knew aside from that violence was football… from the streets to the amateur club his father played in but, most importantly and often forgotten, thanks to Jirès Ekoko… Ekoko was the son of Jean Kembo, a two time winner of the African Cup Of Nations and even more impressively, the man who scored the two goals that made Zaire the first sub-saharan nation to qualify to the World Cup… The man was a legend, but once the Rwandan genocide led to a massive influx of refugees into his country, destabilizing the region until it all culminated into the First Congo War… he had no choice but to send his son to France where, after a few years with his uncle, he ended up playing at As Bondy’s academy, eventually meeting Mbappé’s father, who took him in as his own son… Today Zaire doesn’t exist, but Ekoko is like a brother to Mbappé, a brother that he watched slowly climb the french football ladder, joining the prestigious Clairefontaine academy that gave us Henry and Anelka before becoming a mainstay at Stade Rennais and even representing the French under-21s… Ekoko was Mbappé’s first role model… If, at 6 years old, they caught Mbappé practicing La Marseillaise in his room because, according to the boy, “one day I’ll have to sing it every time I play for the national team”. .
. it was because of Ekoko… he proved to him that it was possible… and so, he followed his footsteps… But by the time he was 11, even though he was still only playing at AS Bondy, just like his brother had, he was already being flown out to London to get a tour of Chelsea’s academy, he met Didier Drgba, he even met Carlo Ancelotti before having any idea the importance that man would have in his career and still, after impressing in and under-12 match for the blues, no matter how many times he had to show his friends the photo he had taken with Drgba until they believed it was all real… once they called asking for a second trial, all his mom had to say was: “If you want to sign him, you sign him now… In five years, they’ll be asking you for 50 million” so, instead, he joined Clairefontaine… just as his brother had before him… and by 14, it was still the same… Mbappé had already rejected Liverpool, Man City, Bayern Munich… the only club he ever paid any attention to… was Real Madrid… and really, the only reason his parents even let him visit was that it was like a birthday gift, they never had any intention of joining… Regardless, as soon as Mbappé stepped off the airplane and found Zinedine Zidane waiting for him at the airport… he was so starstruck that when Zidane opened the door of his car so he could go in, he asked if first he had to take his shoes off… When Ronaldo stood with him for a picture, he looked as the man on the posters of his bedroom walls materialized in front of him and, in his own words, couldn’t stop thinking: “I am just Kylian from Bondy. This can’t be real.
I must still be sleeping on the plane”. . .
No matter what, as I said, his plan had already been set… the next step was to find a team in France and thankfully for him, that was precisely when the league’s most recent billionaires AS Monaco decided to shock the newspapers by taking a break from splashing their millions on signings like Radamel Falcao and James Rodriguez to, instead, go after a 14 year old… but no matter what anyone thought of it then, 2 years later, they’d even more shocked… when, just 3 weeks after promoting him to the reserve squad, Leonardo Jardim brought Mbappé on for the first team, breaking Henry’s 21 year old record, as the youngest to ever play for Monaco… 21 years younger than Ricardo Carvalho who was playing right beside him… Only 8 days later, Mbappé was already facing Tottenham for the Europa League, already assisting their only goal and by February, he had finally done it… scoring his first goal and becoming the youngest goalscorer in Monaco’s history, again breaking Henry’s record… as Arséne Wenger would admit years later: “When I first saw him play, I just wrote down on my notes: “He is Pelé”. . .
. and things were only just getting started… In April, despite already being a mainstay in Monaco’s first team training, Mbappé was allowed to join Monaco’s under-19s once more for the final two matches of the Gambardella Cup, one of the most prestigious youth tournaments in France and what followed was just spectacular… not only did Mbappé score the opener in the semis, but he went into the final… with an assist in the first half, before opening the second with a classic Mbappé run to get his first goal and then closing it by going in between three players and smacking it in from a tight angle, handing his club what what was only their 4th Gambardella trophy in 50 years, not just finally being offered a professional contract, but being called up to the under-19 Euros and making these past performances seem that much more unimpressive once he opening his tally against Croatia by dribble the keeper with one of the cleanest first touches you’ll see, immediately going a step further the very next game, opening the scoring and then adding another to put France in the semi finals where, somehow, he’d go even and with Monaco’s billionaire owner splashing 4. 5 billion in what, at the time, was the largest divorce settlement in history… let’s just say that Mbappé couldn’t have come at a better time… Look, no matter what, for the first two months of the season, Leonardo Jardim still seemed hesitant to make the most out of Mbappé… the kid was literally averaging like 8 minutes of gametime per match, but then… he started him against Montepelier and after going behind only 10 minutes into the match, it happened… First, Mbappé won a penalty for Falcao to tie the match… then Bernardo Silva put in a cross and Mbappé put them in front… and after Montepelier managed to equalize once again, Mbappé assisted one himself to flip the game into a 6 to 2 demolition, the 17 year old was the best player on the pitch… Regardless, that wasn’t enough to convince them just yet… 2 weeks later, with Monaco about to settle for a modest 2 nil win against Nancy, they brought Mbappé in with 26 minutes left on the clock and he did it again… less than a minute later, he had already scored and suddenly, Monaco was banging goal after goal, with Mbappé, at one point, toying with their defense to get himself another assist and by the end, 6 nil… so a month later, he gets another start, gets the opener 10 minutes in, then just hands Falcao a goal, starts the counter attack that led to another and this time, it was 5 nil… and still… somehow… that wasn’t enough to convince Jardim that his name should be permanently printed into their team sheet, so just two weeks later he shows up against Rennes, opens the scoring again just 11 minutes in, gets their second just 10 minutes after that, starts the play that led to their third, scores their fourth to get his first ever hat trick and eventually watches as his teammates score off of his rebound to take a 7 nil win… then, yeah… they realize they should probably give him a couple more minutes and, in the blink of an eye, things started looking really serious… Over the turn of the year, 2 assists in 2 matches to clutch up 2 narrow wins for Monaco, then a goal and an assist as they unbelievable got within inches of being knocked out of the French Cup by third tier FC Chambly and then, just to make sure Leonardo Jardim wouldn’t even think twice about whether or not to bring him in for the Champions League round of 16, Mbappé opens the scoring 7 minutes into their game against Metz, puts in a great run to score his second only 13 minutes after that… and closes the game by securing his second hat trick in two months… to which, you gotta realize, at around this time, Monaco were only 3 points ahead of PSG with 15 matches remaining, everyone expected them to make a comeback… every single one of these goals mattered… and in great part because of that, by the time they had to face Manchester City, anyone that had been paying attention could see that this kid was quite simply one of the most dangerous players on the planet and 35 minutes into the game, with Mbappé putting in shot after shot, making Sagna look like his feet were to stuck to the ground, he already had Guardiola shaking his head in disbelief and… before he even had time to yell out some instructions, Mbappé had already smacked in his goal on the half volley, meaning that, not only had he become the second youngest frenchman to ever score in a Champions League knockout match, but once Guardiola got to his press conference, even though he had indeed managed to turn that match around, all he could do was yet again shake his head and say: “Mbappé… he is just so fast”.
. . the kid had already left him speechless and there was still a second leg to be played… So, it was quite simple actually… a week after that first leg, with Monaco tied against Marseille for the French Cup, Mbappé scores to put them in front, watches them concede another equalizer, goes on another one of his runs and leaves his teammates to slip the ball into the empty net… the game after that, he scores a header and then slips one between the keeper’s legs….
and then just one more goal against Bordeaux to make sure that by the time he stepped on the pitch for the second leg vs City, he was on enough of a hot streak that he put another in between the keepers legs just 7 minutes in, somehow doing it a third time 8 minutes after that, only for it to be disallowed over the narrowest of offsides though… that wouldn’t matter, as it’d be enough to set off the comeback that would put Monaco in the quarters anyways… and, again, I don’t know what it is with this guy and early goals, but in the one league match he played in between those two rounds, he bamboozled two defenders to get his first 13 minutes into the game, then a header to complete his brace and once it was time for Dortmund, not only did he win a penalty 17 minutes into the match, only for Fabinho to miss it, but 2 minutes after that, he had already made up for his teammate’s mistake, scoring the opener… before eventually intercepting a poor pass, dashing down the pitch and smacking another in… it was a brace in the Champions League quarter finals by a kid that had just turned 18… and you know what’s worse? 3 minutes into the second leg, he scored his third… and then started the play that led to another… he was the youngest ever to get 5 Champions League goals and he had done it by scoring all those 5 in 4 knockout matches against City and Dortmund… no one had ever even scored in every single one of their first 4 knockout games, let alone against teams of that caliber and yet, guess what he did next? In the semi finals, facing off against a Juventus squad that had the strongest backline in Europe, he still managed to be the only one in the team to get a goal… as Monaco was finally eliminated… no matter what, not only was that only the second time in their history that they made it past the quarters, but the kid made the team of the year, got nominated to UEFA player of the year and managed to place 4th among all the forwards in the competition, only behind Messi, Ronaldo and well… Dybala… Regardless, there’s one big point I’m yet to make… remember when I mentioned that everyone expected PSG to come back from behind to take the title… they were right to think that, out of those 15 matches that remained, PSG won 12, drew 2 and lost 1, a near perfect record… Monaco however, won 14, drew 1 and lost none, taking the title regardless of what anyone thought… and in many ways that only happened, because Mbappé made sure of it… in the 16 matches where he was allowed over 45 minutes of gametime, they drew one and lost… zero… while in the remaining 22, they drew 5 and lost 3… in fact, had they kept going at the rate they were at before he was fully introduced into the team, they’d have finished 2 points behind PSG, instead they finished 8 in front… For some comparison, over the last 24 matches in the season, Mbappé scored 20 and assisted another 5, take into account the amount of times he was subbed off early or kept on the bench and that's a goal or assist every 65 minutes across the whole season… Ronaldo won the Ballon D’Or that year… and he averaged one every 78… so, as you may imagine, again, the result was pretty simple… first, he was made into the youngest player to be called up the French national team since 1955, then he was handed the league’s young player of the year award and last of all, every club in europe came after him… Barcelona wanted him to be their Neymar replacement, Wenger use every connection he had at Monaco to try to convince him to join Arsenal and Real Madrid, the supposed club of his dreams, showed up immediately with a 180 million euro bid… for reference, a year earlier, transfermarkt had set his market value at 1.
5 million… and still, it wasn’t so easy… Mbappé insisted that he wanted to stay at Monaco for one more year, however, he could see that with Neymar and Dani Alves joining PSG, his team would stand no chance of repeating what they had just done… so… that, paired with the fact Monaco kept pushing him towards Real who refused to promise a place in the starting eleven, meant that… to the shock of everyone, Mbappé chose to play second fiddle to Neymar’s 220 Million euro transfer, to say no to Real Madrid, to come home…. and by January, with 26 goal contributions for his new club being added to what he already had at Monaco, he was on 52 for the year, placing 7th in the Ballon D’Or, the youngest to ever reach the top 10, which obviously meant that when it came to the Golden Boy, no matter how many 21 year olds were up for contention, it was 18 year old Mbappé who swooped up all the votes… though… his true legacy… was yet to be fulfilled… Look, over the rest of the season, his form actually did slow down pretty significantly even if he did take every domestic trophy available… however, if there was one place where he didn’t seem to be slowing down, it surely was with the national team… quite literally scoring or assisting in all of the 7 matches he played with them over that season… so… when the World Cup came around, it wasn’t up for discussion if he’d play, even if that would make him the youngest to ever get a call up by almost a full year… and after two starts, having already gotten his first goal, it was time to face Argentina for the last 16… A lot has been written about that performance, some said it “defined the striker of the future”, others talked about “the fact that Argentina were utterly terrified of him”, that for once, Lionel Messi wasn’t the scariest player on the pitch, even calling it “a changing of the guard”, but, this time, I think the facts actually do it more justice… 13 minutes in, Mbappé took the ball in his own half and sprinted past 4 players before forcing Rojo to give away the penalty that would put France in front… but the thing is, midway through that run, Mbappé clocked the highest speed ever recorded at a World Cup… Regardless, that wasn’t it, because when Mbappé found the game tied at 2 goals each about an hour later, he got in the middle of a penalty box scrap, stole the ball, dashed to the side and put France in front, only to 4 minutes later, put in a 50 yard sprint before sliding the ball in to become the youngest since Pelé to get a brace in a World Cup knockout match… and let me tell you, there’s no greater compliment in football than the words “since Pelé”, so you can probably guess what happened next… two more great performances led him to the match against Croatia where, 65 minutes in, he became the youngest “since Pelé” to score in a world cup final… by the end, Mbappé was a World Champion at 19, he was the best young player at the tournament and 3 months later, he became only the 4th footballer in history to get on the cover of Times Magazine… the legacy had been fulfilled… or as he wrote: “this is for the kids of Bondy, we are the dreamers, and lucky for us, dreaming doesn’t cost much. In fact, it’s free”.
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