Kylian Mbappé is sore. It’s November, and Mbappé’s Paris Saint-Germain drew 1–1 with Newcastle in the Champions League group stage at the Parc des Princes. Mbappé netted a penalty in stoppage time to salvage a point after a disappointing team performance. Mbappé, who is dressed casually in a plain black T-shirt and a loose-fitting pastel-colored Jordan tracksuit with a Hublot Big Bang One Click peeking out from the sleeve, doesn’t appear to be unhappy. “Football is a complex thing and you quickly forget the positive experiences as well as the negative ones,” he said. “You always have to adapt and reinvent yourself.”
A few post-game aches are normal for Mbappé, who, at 25, has already played over 400 games at the highest level of men’s football. After breaking through as a teenage star at AS Monaco, Mbappé won the World Cup with France at the age of 19. In 2017, he signed for PSG for €180 million ($215 million), becoming one of the most costly gems in an all-star lineup that included Neymar and Lionel Messi for two seasons. He is already Paris Saint-Germain’s all-time leading scorer, and it appears that he will eventually acquire the same status with the French national side. (In the process, he became the youngest player in history to make the Ballon d’Or shortlist.)
In that time, Mbappé claims to have learnt what it takes to keep his body in peak condition: more stretching before matches, more time with physiotherapists afterward. “It’s all that largely invisible work that allows you to string together matches and recover more quickly from any injury,” he says, underlining that, unlike some players, he prefers to keep his professional and personal lives separate. “I have a well-equipped home gym, but I prefer to spend as much time as possible in the training facility, doing whatever I need to do, even if it means staying late. Recovery is also mental. The club is work, whereas home is a more relaxing environment where I can spend time with my family, whom I don’t see frequently enough.”
This season represents a new era for Mbappé. Messi departed PSG in July for Inter Miami and the Major League Soccer (MLS). A month later, Neymar joined Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal. The twin departures marked the end of one of the most electrifying forward lines in world football; PSG, one of Europe’s most expensively assembled teams, has gone from a superstar-laden squad to one that, according to most analysts, is now largely reliant on Mbappé’s prodigious talents. “Many great players who have shaped the history of football have left Europe this summer and we are entering a new era,” Mbappé adds in a statement. “It’s become part of the sport’s cycle, and it will eventually be my turn to depart. I am not concerned about these developments. I’m just thinking about continuing my profession and pursuing my own route.”
Mbappé is a player that is well-known for having complete control of his image and how he presents himself to the world. Throughout our chat, I couldn’t help but notice his youthful joy and fixation with winning. “The urge to win, to push the boundaries of what is possible, and to do great things is firmly instilled in me. Mbappé believes he owes his success to the education and mentoring he got both on and off the field, which helped him develop as a player and a man. “We often forget that when we play football, we are perpetually children. The level at which we play the game varies, but the mentality does not. “The passion remains constant over the years.”
Despite leading the Ligue 1 top scorer lists for five seasons in a row—he scored 29 last year as PSG defeated surprise rival Lens to win the title—Mbappé has recently reaffirmed his desire to become a more well-rounded player. “That doesn’t surprise me, given his meticulous tendencies and competitive nature. Didier Deschamps, France’s coach, says he constantly wants to do more and improve in all areas. Heading, for example, was not one of Mbappé’s early skills, but Deschamps says that he has made significant progress in this area, as evidenced by his goal for France against Australia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. “Even if the number of goals he’s already scored is impressive, he can probably still be a little more precise,” Deschamps said.
