Kylian Mbappé was born on 20 December in 1998, Paris, France. He is a French football player who is famous for his speed and goal scoring as a forward. His set of skills have made him a dominant force in European club competition. In 2022 he became the first player in football history to have scored four career goals in World Cup finals.
FAMILY
His mother, Fayza Lamari, is of Algerian descent, and his father, Wilfried Mbappé, immigrated from Cameroon. Wilfried Mbappé was a coach and director for the local club AS Bondy, and his son joined the club’s youth teams at age six. His younger brother, Ethan, plays for Lille and their older adoptive brother, Jirès Kembo Ekoko, is a former professional footballer.
CAREER.
Mbappé was coached by his father, Wilfrid and Antonio Riccardi, when he started his career with AS Bondy.
Antonio Riccardi said, “We knew very early on, at the age of 8 or 9, that he would become a star. In his category, Kylian was always above the others. While he was supposed to play with the under-13s, we had outclassed him with the under-15s and he was decisive. We knew he would go to a training center. I was convinced he would be on TV.”
Kylian Mbappé was then selected to train at Clairefontaine academy, France’s national academy for elite football players. He spent two years there, and a number of notable European clubs including Real Madrid, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) became interested in signing him.
AS MONACO.
In 2013, at age 14, he signed with AS Monaco a three-year contract, and he played on the club’s youth and under-19 teams. Kylian made his debut with AS Monaco’s first team on December 2, 2015. He was just a few weeks away from his 17th birthday. He then became the youngest first-team player in the club’s history at that time, after Thierry Henry. Mbappé scored his first goal for the team on 20 February 2016.
In 2016–17, however, he scored 26 goals from 44 matches, which tied him for fifth among Ligue 1 players, and AS Monaco captured the Ligue 1 title. Powered by Mbappé and teammate Radamel Falcao, the team won against Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund in knockout matches as it advanced to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League semifinals, where it lost to Juventus.
PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN (PSB)
In August 2017 Mbappé signed with PSG, which also signed Neymar, a prolific Brazilian scorer. Together they led PSG to three consecutive Ligue 1 titles (2017–18, 2018–19, and 2019–20). Mbappé was named the league’s Player of the Year for the 2018–19 season, when he scored 33 goals, the most in Ligue 1. He led the league in goals in each of the next three seasons, and he again earned league Player of the Year honors in 2020–21, and 2021–22.
In 2021-22 PSG won the Ligue 1 title again. Mbappé subsequently agreed to a new contract that could, via an extension clause, keep him at PSG through 2025. In 2022−23, for the fifth season in a row, Mbappé was again named league Player of the Year; PSG also won another Ligue 1 championship. The 2023–24 season saw PSG win Ligue 1 again and Mbappé receive Player of the Year honors again; the team’s third consecutive title and Mbappé’s fifth consecutive win.
REAL MADRID.
It was widely reported in February 2024 that Mbappé had informed PSG that he would not exercise his contract’s extension clause and thus intended to leave the club after the 2023–24 season. In May 2024 Mbappé said on social media he would be leaving PSG, and in June 2024 Real Madrid officially announced he would be joining that club.
On 16 July 2024, Mbappé was unveiled as a new Real Madrid player at the Santiago Bernabéu and his presentation was attended by 80,000 spectators, the same number as Cristiano Ronaldo’s presentation in 2009.
INTERNATIONAL CAREER.
In 2016 at the UEFA European Under-19 Championship, Mbappé led France’s national team to victory. His first match with the French men’s national team was in 2017. At the age of 19 he became the youngest French player ever to score in World Cup competition during the 2018 World Cup.
His goal gave France a 1–0 group-stage victory over Peru, and the French team advanced to the knockout stages of the tournament, where it eventually defeated Croatia 4–2 in the tournament’s final. Mbappé scored the last of his team’s goals, becoming the second teenager to score in a World Cup final with Pelé being the first, in 1958. Mbappé received the World Cup’s Best Young Player award for his performance, which included scoring four goals.
Mbappé scored the winning goal for France in the final of the UEFA Nations League tournament, in 2021. At the 2022 World Cup he scored eight goals in seven matches and that won him the Golden Boot award. In the tournament final, Mbappé scored three goals and twice brought the French team from behind to tie Argentina, but France ultimately lost on penalty kicks. With his three goals, Mbappé became the first player in history to have tallied four career World Cup final goals.
During the UEFA EURO 2024, Mbappé scored a penalty in the final group match against Poland and helped set up a goal by Randal Kolo in the semifinals against Spain although the game ended with a 2-1 defeat.