“Mmm-bap-eeee, Mmm-bap-eeee.”
It was not yet midnight but the French team were about to leave the stadium in Portugal’s Algarve where they had beaten Gibraltar 3-0, with one of the goals from Kylian Mbappe, the man of the night and probably the man of the week.
Despite spending more than half an hour talking to his mother, Fayza Lamari; his 16-year-old younger brother and Paris Saint-Germain youth player Ethan; a group of friends and private security personnel, the elder Mbappe could not avoid the passionate cries of the fans crowded behind the stadium’s gates.
The France captain could still be heard talking in a relaxed, affectionate and extroverted manner as if nothing was going on, until he heeded the call of his fans and signed a few autographs and posed for selfies before returning to his family.
His family’s presence felt significant: after one of the most momentous weeks of his career, the Mbappe clan — minus his father, Wilfried — had descended just before the match by plane to southern Portugal to support their boy.
Mbappe’s family carry a lot of weight — not only in Paris, but also in France. That is why many of Kylian’s team-mates — among them Ousmane Dembele, Marcus Thuram and Eduardo Camavinga — went to greet his mother as if she were a director of the French Football Association.
Fayza Lamari (right) and Ethan Mbappe (left) watch on in Faro (Photo: Thomas COEX/AFP via Getty Images)
It was she who, just after the French anthem was played before the match, wished her son good luck from the presidential box. And surprisingly, despite the distance and the crowd, her son, flag in hand, found his mother in the stands and seemed to breathe easier.
France’s victory brought to an end a week as hectic as it was decisive for Mbappe, who on Monday sent a letter to PSG advising them he had no intention of extending his contract beyond 2024. It was a move that surprised the Parisian side, to put it mildly.
Mbappe’s camp then issued a statement to French news agency AFP insisting he had told them of his decision last year, just weeks after he signed his current deal. PSG refuted this and also described Mbappe’s claims there had been no renewal talks since last summer as “emphatically untrue”, adding that there was “no way” Mbappe would leave on a free transfer next summer.
On Tuesday, Mbappe tweeted in response to a report from Le Parisien, a media outlet in theory closer to PSG, with the headline: “Mbappe wanted to join Real Madrid.”
“LIES,” he responded. “At the same time, the bigger it is, the more it passes. I have already said that I will continue next season at PSG where I am very happy.”
So why did Mbappe send the letter?
“I don’t think a letter will kill or offend anyone,” he said with a half-smile at a press conference on Thursday that was remarkably well-attended ahead of a European Championship qualifier against Gibraltar, ranked 201st in the world. Would he send a message to PSG or even Real Madrid?
Mbappe said his “only option at the moment is PSG” and added: “people don’t have all the information”. And so the games continued.
In the days leading up to the match against Gibraltar, Mbappe was very calm, behaving as if he was under no additional pressure and interacting normally with the rest of his team-mates and with Didier Deschamps. Mbappe asked his manager to play against Gibraltar, as the coach himself acknowledged on Thursday.
His entourage, however, left less room for doubt. Every time they were questioned in the Algarve — where the match was taking place because Gibraltar do not have a stadium up to international standards — they repeated the player’s desire to stay in Paris.
During the match, however, Mbappe seemed a little distracted.
He paced, looked to the side and kept pacing. His cause wasn’t helped by the lowkey nature of the fixture, with only 2,000 French fans in a 31,000-seat stadium containing just just over 4,000 fans altogether. But there were plenty of banners, plenty of shouts of support, and most of it was directed towards Mbappe, undoubtedly the biggest highlight of a match to forget.
But in Portugal, Cristano Ronaldo territory, Mbappe did not miss the chance to emulate his childhood idol. In first-half stoppage time his penalty, perfectly placed in the top right-hand corner, put France 2-0 up and on track to maintain their 100 per cent record in qualifying for Euro 2024. Olivier Giroud had scored France’s first goal after just three minutes.
(Photo: FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)
Mbappe’s involvement in the game was not as consistent or intense as usual, but the France No 10 continued to show good technical skills until he broke down the left near the end of the game, crossed the ball in and forced an own goal from defender Aymen Mouelhi to make it 3-0.
It was his third match as France’s captain and he is still only 24 years old, but Mbappe set the pace and, after the final whistle, he asked his team-mates to go and thank the French fans for their support.
France now host Greece on Monday and then Mbappe will begin his holiday with his future up in the air.
Despite the player’s public stance, if PSG are adamant about selling him this summer, further developments could take place in the coming weeks, with potential offers from Madrid or other clubs.
Mbappe, though, maintains that his desire is to stay in Paris and his salary conditions, the same ones that make him the player with the best sports contract in history, make the chances of a sudden departure even more remote.
Yet for many, this story will not appear closed until Mbappe fulfils his childhood dream of playing for Real Madrid.
(Top photo: Fran Santiago – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
