The career of a professional footballer is an allegory of life. First the first steps and the enthusiasm of the discovery. Then, adolescence and the crisis. Finally, adulthood and then decline. At almost 23 years old, Kylian Mbappé is out of the phase where he is found very cute to discover the one where the public wants to slap him. The thermal shock is as unpleasant as a messed up penalty in the round of 16 of Euro 2021. A black spot in the career of the young man to be stored next to the C1 final lost against Bayern Munich on the shelf of his (rare) disillusionment.
“The holidays helped me move on,” he said in an interview with L’Equipe published Tuesday, because it is difficult to start playing again immediately after such an event. Before this salutary break, the idea of another break, a little longer, in the France team, even crossed his mind. Because not enough internal support, because too much criticism… “From the moment I felt that I was supposedly starting to become a problem and people saw me as a problem… Most importantly, it was ‘is the France team, and if the France team is happier without me, that’s how it is. “
Love and pout
The ultimate sacrifice for love. Another great role for the attacker, who would probably never have played the bad guys if he had been a film actor. Wise advice of old distilled by Alain Giresse, contacted by 20 minutes : “He shouldn’t stop at criticism. And then, since it is question that he signs for Real Madrid, he must not forget that there, he will be supported only if he is efficient. The critics, the perpetual questioning, that’s the very high level. We have to prove the people on the ground wrong. “
It remains to be seen how the idea of the unloved, the main subject of his post-Euro meeting with Noël Le Graët, was able to germinate in Kylian Mbappé’s mind. From his interview to The team, we understand that he was seriously affected by the many racist insults he was subjected to on social networks after Switzerland. On the sporting side, he would not have said no to two or three taste buds of his teammates in the locker room after the missed penalty, which goes in the direction of history.
In his book (From the World to the Euro – Behind the scenes of the blue world champions), Baptiste Desprez portrays a player in constant need of affection on a daily basis, with a certain propensity to sulk when the staff are not paying attention to him. His entourage is not left out either: still according to the journalist’s book of the Figaro, the player’s relatives would have held informal hearings with certain journalists during the Euro to justify the sluggish competition of KM10 since no one thought of defending him – hearings since denied by Mbappé’s mother.
If it can reassure the world around Kylian, Lucas Hernandez had sweet words for his teammate in the France team on Tuesday at Clairefontaine. “He’s a huge player, everyone loves him, and he’s very well respected. He’s a young player but he’s one of the executives here. We’re all with him, we know we need him. He said what he said, but that he knows that he is a unique player and that the France team needs him. “
Living with Benzema-Griezmann
Of course. We have known Kylian Mbappé to be indispensable for a long time, it is even a pleonasm, on condition that he does not repeat too often the football porridge interviewed against Bosnia (in his defense, everyone was zero tonight -there) and quickly get back to scoring. Because if he was involved in five of the seven French goals at the Euro, including the equalizer against Hungary which may have avoided France a greater fiasco, the Parisian has been silent in Blue since the preparation match against Wales at 11 against 10.
Small symbolic joke: the next match, against Bulgaria, will mark the beginning of the soapy slope with the famous confusion with Olivier “please give me the pass I am unmarked” Giroud. A quarrel like so many others in a football locker room and quickly forgotten according to the official version, which all the same more or less cost his place in Blue to the neo-Milanese.
Mbappé vs Bosnia | Skills & Goals | “Vamos chicos es una final” [HD 1080P] pic.twitter.com/0gSQb84CFb
– ً (@ JR10Antoine) September 1, 2021
If he has always shown a certain enthusiasm at the idea of evolving alongside Karim Benzema – “when he came back, I said to myself: ‘Great, that gives us one more weapon'” – Mbappé is undoubtedly of the three members of the attack that everyone envies us, the one who has the most difficulty adapting to it. Not without frustration: haven’t we witnessed too often lately, the stereotypical game of Kylian who desperately seeks to shed light through individual achievement? Alain Giresse:
“Like at PSG, he plays with two top-class players, it’s a blessing because they can allow him to grow and develop his potential in another register. By discounts, by participating in the game, by having this capacity to participate in the collective. If at this level you do not expand your registry, in some situations you will find yourself stuck. Percussion and speed are Kylian’s best weapons, but France’s opponents know it and position themselves very low. He should be able to get into the game, too. “
A logical process which nevertheless underlies adapting to a new context and therefore going against the principle which now seems to guide one’s career, namely to be the cornerstone of a project, the one around which one built. With a Karim Benzema at the top of his game and the respect due to Antoine Griezmann, it is currently impossible. “I think Kylian is looking for himself,” concludes the 1984 European champion. The search for identity, typical of the teenager, that.