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The hype and expectation
Great things were expected from Kylian Mbappe from a very young age, and great things he has gone on to produce.
This summer, the forward became the first player for half a century to reach double figures at a World Cup, in doing so becoming France’s all-time record goalscorer.
At club level, he was voted Ligue 1’s Player of the Year five times and finished as the league’s leading goalscorer on six occasions. For Real Madrid, he has fired 86 goals in 103 outings, a tally that includes three Champions League hat-tricks.
For seven years running he has finished in the top ten in the Ballon d’Or rankings.
Unquestionably, the football-obsessed kid from a suburb just north of Paris has fulfilled the immense potential that was apparent to all, potential that prompted Real Madrid to fly him to their training facility aged 11, and Chelsea to do likewise three years later.
On seeing Mbappe for the first time at Clairefontaine, France’s national football centre, Arsene Wenger reportedly uttered four words to those close-by: ‘We have Pele here’.
The construction begins
So striking were the youngster’s attributes it felt inevitable to childhood friends and coaches alike that he would make it in the professional game. How could he not when blessed with such pronounced gifts?
But, of course, football – indeed, life – is never so straightforward and tales are commonplace of feted wonderkids falling by the wayside, or hitting their development ceiling early.
It is therefore to the Mbappe family’s enormous credit that it was recognised early on that talent alone was never going to be enough in order for Kylian to succeed.
An ego was needed, so as to best navigate the high demands placed upon him. Conversely, humility was required too, to handle the approaching fame.
An inner-drive was there from the get-go, but that would need to be channelled correctly, while a mental fortitude was essential, to deal with the set-backs that would surely accompany his journey to superstardom.
In essence, a person was purposely constructed to prepare for the life that awaited him, a process that Mbappe alluded to when he once said:
“My mother always told me that before being a great player I have to be a great man”
The right environment
The first – and arguably most potent – consideration in the forming of an individual’s character is often the aspect least under their control.
To that end, luck played a significant role in Mbappe having the ways and means within his childhood environment to properly develop his emerging skills, while gestating too the mindset of an elite sportsman.
The small flat in which he grew up in overlooked the stadium of Parisian banlieue team AS Bondy, the club where his father Wilfried coached. Indeed, from the kitchen window it was possible to take in the entire vista of the pitch.
It was at Bondy where Mbappe first began his footballing odyssey, playing for the youth set-up as a precocious teen, but even prior to that there was no keeping him away from the place.
As a boy he religiously watched the players train. Listened vicariously to his father’s bellowed instructions. Took it all in.
“I learned everything there,” he later said.
The right inspiration
Choosing your heroes is never an arbitrary decision. They inform and inspire and, consciously or not, we willingly seek out the specific manner in which they do so.
Mbappe’s heroes as a child were Cristiano Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane, two footballing behemoths who influenced him in different ways.
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There is a well-known photograph of a six-year-old Mbappe sitting on his bed, surrounded by a plethora of Ronaldo posters on the walls, and naturally at such a tender age what most delights is the player’s generational ability to score fantastic goals and beat opponents.
Yet, the Portuguese schemer also fascinated the youngster because of his dedication to improve. His relentless and compulsory drive.
Years later, his Monaco team-mate Bernardo Silva – himself a Ballon d’Or nominee – would praise Mbappe’s professionalism, comparing it to an ‘obsession’.
As for Zidane, an icon of France even beyond the sporting sphere, Mbappe was drawn to his individuality, and more so the courage he had to take risks when expressing it on the pitch.
Aged 11, Mbappe went to his local barbers and asked for a ‘Zidane cut’. The barber was confused, because the player had very short hair and so did the boy before him.
What Mbappe was referring to was Zidane’s bald patch. He wanted one too to be just like his idol.
The right mentality
It has been said of Mbappe that he is a man driven by ambition, a quality that has served him well, steering him clear of compromise or settling.
It has also helped him remain laser-focused on his pathway to the top. In 2017, and still a teenager, he said:
“I have had a career plan since I can remember. I know what I want to do, where I want to go, and I won’t let anything disturb me”
It has also been intimated by some that he possesses a large ego, a trait that can have negative connotations in many walks of life, but not when 83,000 baying fans inside the Bernabéu are demanding the spectacular.
Then, self-belief is essential, for preservation as much as to propel Mbappe to spectacular heights.
The player has previously spoken about the affirmations he has trained his mind towards which feeds this necessary self-worth.
“Every time I step onto the field, I tell myself I'm the best... because that way you don't give yourself limits”
He was much the same when he trained at Bondy, insisting to his father that he be pitted against the best defender available, and there must have been evenings when he didn’t want that, not really, but he forced himself to request this, nonetheless.
In doing so it was another brick laid in the construction of a mindset that ensured that everything which followed was taken in his stride.
