Kylian Mbappe’s superstar status is as indisputable as it is undeniable. But somehow there seems to be no denying he has a penchant for placing himself on a higher pedestal than everyone around him, a trait that seems out of kilter for someone in a team sport.
One of the youngest World Cup winners, Mbappe’s rise has been the stuff of legends. From breaking Thierry Henry’s record as the youngest player to make a first-team debut for Monaco aged 16 and moving to Paris Saint-Germain four years later, where he became the king of the castle, his story has been a football fairytale.
That includes the then 19-year-old forward’s four-goal haul that helped France claim the World Cup crown in Russia and Mbappe bagging the tournament’s best young player accolade.
Headline-hogging performances for PSG propelled him to a godly status, so much so that the Paris club pandered to his whims. He became so powerful he held sway on which coach could be hired. He developed a jealous streak when, say, Lionel Messi came to form a fearsome trio with him and Neymar.
> All superstars are cultured in the cornerstone of togetherness, coexisting perfectly in their paradise of Paris.
While PSG dominated Ligue 1, turning it into a farmers’ league with their monopoly on the title, they struggled to transfer that dominance to the rest of Europe, constantly falling short of capturing the Champions League.
### Qatari oil dollars
Coaches came and went in Mbappe’s seven-year PSG spell. Spaniard Unai Emery was replaced by German Thomas Tuchel, after whom arrived Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, who was followed by Frenchman Christophe Galtier, who was let go to make way for the entry of Emery’s countryman and incumbent, Luis Enrique.
That which the club bankrolled by Qatari oil dollars craved the most with Mbappe as the spearhead, the Uefa Champions League title, remained elusive.
After running down his contract and leaving, to be unveiled in front of a full Santiago Bernabeu by Real Madrid president Fiorentino Perez, as the latest crown jewel in the galaxy of stars, he was meant to be the driving force of Madrid’s grip on Europe’s greatest club competition. Instead, his arrival has been met with a back-to-back failure by Madrid to add to their 15th Champions League title.
Back at the Paris ranch, Mbappe’s departure was some kind of a good omen as Enrique was able to engineer a cohesive unit, one not reliant on an individual but imbued with a collective team ethic free of an overbearing personality who perceived himself to be above the pack.
Together, they ran an amazing race that resulted in lifting their first Champions League trophy. And the 5-0 defeat of Inter Milan marked the biggest margin of defeat in the final of the competitions in 69 years.
PSG are again pulverising on the path to defend their title. It is not about Ousmane Dembele, the current Ballon d’Or holder. It’s not livewire left-back Nuno Mendes. African footballer of the year Achraf Hakimi does not think about him either. Neither do Marquinhos, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Bradley Barcola.
### Cornerstone of togetherness
All superstars are cultured in the cornerstone of togetherness, coexisting perfectly in their paradise of Paris.
By contrast, in the capital of Spain, the club Madrid is not so Real with Mbappe among them. There, he has found a club notorious for player power, where standoffs between player and coach are common.
The latest instalment played out when Brazilian Vinicius Jnr squared off against Carlo Ancelotti’s successor, Xabi Alonso. The club chose the player and chopped their former midfield maestro, restricting his stint to a mere seven months after arriving on the back of a historic unbeaten domestic Bundesliga double with Bayer Leverkusen.
His replacement, another club star, Alvaro Arbeloa, has the job of making Vinicius Jnr and Mbappe combine as effectively as the combination Cristiano Ronaldo developed with Gareth Bale when Real visited devastation on the opposition en route to winning the Champions League hat-trick between 2016 and 2018.
Real’s problems, including playing second fiddle to Barcelona in La Liga, are not all down to Mbappe. But knowing how he behaved at PSG, and looking at where they are now, perhaps he can prod his current peers to take a leaf from Enrique’s PSG.
X - @bbkunplugged99