How strong is Mbappe?

After becoming famous in the World Cup in Russia at the age of 19 and becoming a world-class star, Mbappe has completely become an athlete in the spotlight. In the past four years, his game data, interviews and off-court life are all clear and traceable. Fans are keen to compare it with the performance of the best predecessors in football, such as Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi who finally realized his World Cup dream.

Today, the 23-year-old Mbappe is already one of the most impressive and expensive football players on the planet. This summer, French giant Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (hereinafter referred to as Paris Saint-Germain), in order to retain Mbappe, offered a contract extension worth US$250 million. An episode that further proves Mbappe's influence is that French President Macron personally intervened in this contract renewal. The former hopes that Mbappe can continue to stay in Paris because he is "very important" to France.

The birth of a superstar athlete never happens from the air. Following the path of gold glitter, we may be able to better understand why he became Mbappe.

On December 20, 1998, Mbappe was born in Bondy, a suburban town northeast of the French capital Paris. Perhaps it was a subtle coincidence, but just over five months ago, France won the World Cup for the first time in the 1998 World Cup hosted on home soil. It was a World Cup that is still mentioned today, and even the theme song "Cup of Life" sung by Ricky Martin has become a football classic.

Mbappé’s father, Wilfrid, is a Cameroonian who immigrated to France and is also a football coach. His mother, Faisa, is a French-Algerian and a retired handball player. In a family with a good sports atmosphere, talent is hard to be buried. Wilfrid has been the U15 coach of the local AS Bondi team for a long time. This club has produced more than a dozen top professional players. Mbappe started playing football at the age of 4 and has been in the club coached by his father since the beginning. AS Bondi team president Artimer Enech once praised Mbappe, "He has eyes in the back of his head. He knows how to predict the position of the ball. He will never play in the corresponding age group because there is no need." ."

At home, Mbappe also has a role model that he can directly learn from. Unlike his idol, Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, adopted brother Guilles Ekoko is a target that can be quickly compared to him. Ekoko is more than ten years older than Mbappe, and he later played for the French Ligue 1 team Rennes. The first precious jersey in Mbappe's life was given to him by Ekoko. The internal conditions of the family ensured that the Mbappe project could be launched, but if this project, which was later dubbed as amazing, wanted to accelerate its operation, it also needed enough external conditions, such as the favor of a top club. In the vast suburbs around Paris (hereinafter referred to as the Greater Paris Area), which also includes Bondy, where Mbappé was born, is the base of the largest football talent pool in Europe. About 12 million people live there. In addition to Sao Paulo, Brazil, the greater Paris area is the place with the most scouts in the world. Europe's top clubs regularly send observers to the greater Paris area, including Bondi. The assistant of Monchi, a well-known scout of Sevilla, the traditional powerhouse of La Liga, once mentioned in an interview, "When Mbappe was 12 years old, the whole of Europe already knew about him. It was already too early for a club like ours to take action. It’s too late”. The fierce competition is evident, with many scouts even starting to look for players as young as 11 or 12 years old and signing them quickly.

The scouts will not settle. During courtside observations time after time, they will only select players who meet the requirements, the kind of players who meet the criteria of "the next great person." It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t happen at the time, because there will always be. They all believed it. In 2018, 8 of the 23 players brought to the World Cup in Russia by French coach Deschamps were from the Greater Paris area, including Mbappe.