19 year Kylian Mbappe has become the youngest player to score a brace at the world cup. In total he has scored three goals for France.
Last year he made a historic move from Monaco to PSG, according multiple reports his transfer price was within the bracket of 180- 200 million euros.
In addition to the transfer fee, he is paid €1.5 million a month, the third-highest salary in the French league after his teammates Neymar and Edison Cavani
How did he get here at just 19?
Kylian Mbappe did not grow up in the center of Paris, he was born faraway in an impoverished suburb called Bondy
Bondy is a migrant town on the very outskirts of Paris. People who live there come from mainly North and West Africa. 70% of them are Muslims. This suburb has one of the highest rates of crime and unemployment in France. The French police is always in Bondy frisking dark colored and brown boys who they view as terror and crime suspects
Baby steps to big things
At a tender age of about 5, he begged his father to sign him up at his local football club AS Bondy. His father Wilfred Mbappé a Cameroon Migrant was the coach.
His father was initially reluctant, he did not want to compromise objectivity. But he gave him a chance.
Persistence and hard work over talent
At Bondy Mbappé sometimes felt the training had not been enough and he would secretly practice behind the dormitories, deep into the night, phone in hand to light his trail. Even his free time was filled with football. He was known to watch four games in a row.
From AS Bondy to French football academy Clairefontaine:
The French football academy sponsored by the french government is a well fitted institution that focuses on football training skills. the overall objective is to prepares young French footballers for the international stage.
Talent scouts from top clubs like Real-Madrid, Chelsea and PSG spotted him at France football academy and started courting him In 2012, around his 14th birthday, he spent a few days at Real Madrid. That explains the photograph of him beaming beside Christian Ronaldo. His parents refused to allow him play at international leagues. they wanted him to play in leagues close to home, he was to young to travel and also attended school in France
Because his parents insisted he stayed close to home, hence he signed with French club Monaco. December 2, 2015 – At 16, he became Monaco’s youngest player
Some say his dad made a tactical decision to guide him to start in a smaller club where he had greater chance of getting play time.
2016/ 2017 season- a period that defined Kylian Mbappe.
Aged 17 years and 62 days, the old posters still hanging in his childhood bedroom, Mbappe became the youngest player ever to score for Monaco.
In February 2017, he become the youngest player since 2005 to score a Ligue 1 hat-trick, aged 18 years and two months
He took the Champions League by storm, helping Monaco to the semi-final of the competition with six goals in nine matches
In the entire 2016/2017 season, he made 44 appearances, scored 24 goals and had only 2 yellow cards
Meanwhile, he passed his baccalaureate, the French school-leaving certificate that allows you to enter university ( Nigeria’s equivalent of Jamb)
As the big clubs came calling again, the 18-year-old’s weekly wages moved to a staggering £140,000 per week to fend off interest .
In March of 2017, he got enlisted to play for the national team.
Enter PSG with some Arab money.
PSG won the race for the 18-year-old They will pay Monaco about £180- 200 million for Mbappe
In spite of his success he still met some Naysayers along the way
Manchester United’s scouts watched the boy for a year, but the club’s then-manager Louis van Gaal refused to sign him.
Mbappe is a good player, but his price is not £120m,’Barcelona legend Eric Abidal once said during an interview
Argentina – France knock out game (group of 16)
A 19 year old teenager who grew up in the crime ridden Parisian suburb of Bondy scores a brace dispatching legend Messi and the Argentina team out of Russia 2018
Kylian Mbappe is a young boy that made all the right decisions
He stayed in school football academy clairefontaine’, even passed French baccalaureate
He listened to his parents who decided the pathway for him.
Today he plays with PSG and earns 1.5million euros monthly, but he still lives with his parents and stays grounded
In an old block of flats in Bondy, his image stays sky high, as the Migrant suburb claim their own.
“It makes me proud because he comes from the suburbs like me,” 14-year-old Yanis Jean told Al Jazeera. “I want to be like him one day.”
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