AS A CHILD, Kylian Mbappé would tell people his goal was to become the best footballer in the world.

He is probably not the only youngster to make this aspiration known, but few fulfil such a dream.

At the 2022 World Cup final, while Lionel Messi grabbed most of the headlines after inspiring Argentina to victory, the match felt like the passing of the mantle.

It might not have been the Inter Miami star’s last act on the international stage – he is due to compete at this summer’s tournament as well – but on the verge of turning 39 and playing in the relative obscurity of Major League Soccer, he is no longer considered the world’s best footballer.

While becoming the first player since Geoff Hurst to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final was not enough for France to prevail, it strengthened the perception of Mbappé as the heir apparent after years of dominance by Messi and fellow superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

For many, including Julien Laurens, Mbappé is now the best player in the world, and should he guide France to victory this summer and potentially secure that elusive Ballon d’Or as a result, it will go some way towards silencing those who remain sceptical.

Laurens has written a new authorised biography of the 27-year-old superstar, covering his entire life from his remarkable sporting rise in childhood to the current challenges he faces at Real Madrid.

The acclaimed author and journalist recently caught up with The 42 to chat about his new book.

What prompted you to write the book?

I’ve been following Mbappé for all these years, and he’s now, for me, the best player in the world. A World Cup is coming up, and he’s so good at World Cups that we felt like it was the right time, because if there’s another final or another title at the World Cup, then I think that would cement the legacy.

I wrote in the acknowledgements that one of my best friends, who still lives in Paris, told me about this kid from Bondy, who was destroying everybody. Kylian was 11.

We came down to watch him play, and that was the first time I put my eyes on him, and since then, I just followed everything he did – Clairefontaine, the Monaco youth team, breaking through, and then being at most of the key games that he’s played in his career.

There’s always some noise around him, whether he defends enough, how good he is, or if he is a bit selfish, is he a bit this, a bit that? So I thought it was a fascinating story, far more positive than negative, by the way. So let’s tell it.

What would you say was the biggest surprise or revelation that you came across in all the research?

I think what is most fascinating to write, and for people who will read it to understand, really, is that people like him are just made differently.

I don’t think they are normal people like you and me, they are just like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Leo Messi or Cristiano, Rory McIlroy is another one, or Tiger Woods, who are just wired differently than us, they are already that driven when they’re three, four years old.

When we learn how to play a sport, they are already thinking about the day when they will be the best in the sport. And this is really rare. It doesn’t come about that often, and I think he has that, and it’s all the people talking about him growing up, and already, why he learned Spanish so well when he was at school, because he knew it was inevitable that one day he would play for Real Madrid.

Why did he learn La Marseillaise, the French anthem, at three years old? Because he was convinced that he would play for France at the World Cup. So he would hear the anthem, and he would have to know it – all that kind of stuff that you don’t think, as a three-year-old or four-year-old or five-year-old, was already built in his mind.

So it’s all this that he had planted and planned in his head already growing up, that yes, he would be a World Cup winner, he would be a Ballon d’Or winner, he would be a Champions League winner, and they still think he hasn’t achieved yet, but for me, the most fascinating, really, was that side.

There are other nice things in the book. I think the other thing that maybe I didn’t really grasp as much. I knew the first year at Monaco, when he went to the academy, it was difficult – I hadn’t realised how difficult.

For him to almost lose the love of football and the desire to play was quite incredible because I knew he was tough and didn’t get on with his U17 coach at the time, and he was still very young; he was only 14-15. But it got to the point that he almost stopped playing football, and didn’t want even to go training or playing, and that’s a big part of the book as well, because things could have gone [awry] as much as everything was planned, and his trajectory was so linear and super.

There was this moment where it looked like [he might quit], leaving training and going home crying is not good for a 15-year-old, and that was a moment in the book where I thought, okay, things could have gone very differently.

Mbappé grew up idolising Lionel Messi. The pair later became teammates at club level and rivals on the international stage. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Something that comes across is that his parents have been hugely influential. Both have sporting backgrounds and are probably more hands-on than most, even since he’s become a superstar. Is that fair to say?

[His mother and agent] Fayza says in the book that the only project they had really was to let him enjoy his football. They knew how good he was, obviously, let’s be honest here, but for him to enjoy his football, for them to be very loving parents out there, of course, they had a pathway that they wanted for Killian, because they knew how good he was. So, why waste time?

But they were not pushy parents, they didn’t force him to train five hours a day, but what they would do is, if he wanted to go and play in the council estates, or at the stadium, they lived just across the street, it took him 15 seconds to go from their flat to the Bondy Stadium – of course, he could.

They were very encouraging of him playing and loving football all the time, and they could see how passionate he was, because he was not just playing. He was watching it, playing on the PlayStation. He would spend hours looking at YouTube clips of players and how they dribble, how they finish and how they were playing.

So they didn’t want to come between him and his passion for the game. But they never pushed him; they never made him train with a personal coach or anything. But Wilfred, the dad, was a coach himself, so they would go together with the younger brother [Ethan], when he was a bit older, and the oldest half-brother [Jirès Kembo Ekoko], the adoptive son of the Mbappés, and go and play. But it was enjoyable.

They knew exactly what they wanted in terms of where he should go next – Clairefontaine, a good academy where there will be a pathway for him, making his debut for the first team as a pro early on, and all of that. They had that in mind, and they knew exactly [how to plan this pathway], because Wilfrid had been in the game for a long time, Fayza was a top-flight handball player, and the adopted son was already a pro, and they went with him along his career. So they had the older brother first, and then they were ready for Kylian and Ethan, the younger one [who is now 19 and plays for Lyon].

Mbappé pictured with his parents, Wilfrid and Fayza. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Something that struck me was Kylian’s camp being approached by Caen when he was 11, and guaranteeing he would play first-team football at 16, as part of their bid to sign him. How commonplace or rare are those sorts of deals in football, do you think, and I imagine it can be potentially at least a very big burden for a player as young as he was?

Yeah, some of them. I mean, the good thing about it is that Kylian was never in the conversation about whether he’s good enough to play at that age, even the money side of it; he was never involved. All he wanted was to play football.

But the mum and dad [took the initiative], and the mum more on the non-football side, and the dad on the football side, because that was their remit, that was their thing, that was very clear – they knew how talented he was, and he really was.

I promise you, if you’d seen him at 11, there was no doubt, bar a big injury, that he would make it, and I’ve seen Nicholas Anelka at 15, Thierry Henry at 16, Hatem Ben Arfa at 13. I played against some of them, and they were amazing. They were wonder kids, but Kylian looked even a step higher than that, even to Thierry and to Nico.

That’s why the Caen scout, David Lasry, for example, who went to see him first, at 10-11, knew that he would win the Ballon d’Or one day. It was that obvious. So, when it’s that obvious, I guess you can almost promise in a way, because you can’t include him in a contract, but if they see how good he is now, there should not be any issues for him to be so good at 16 or 17 that he would be good enough then to play for the first team, and that’s also what Monaco said.

And that’s when things got a little bit tense at Monaco, because there was a point where Kylian was the best player at training, and yet he still hadn’t played for the first team in Ligue 1, and that’s when Wilfrid was like: ‘Hang on, we’re going to leave here, because we discussed this. You agreed to give him his chance if he was worthy of it, and clearly we can all see in training how good he is, and yet he’s still not playing for the first team.’

So it could be difficult to guarantee something like that, or to promise it, because if you don’t, then people are saying: ‘You told us that if he was good enough, he could play, and now we can see he’s good enough, and yet, he’s still not playing.’ But that’s what the Mbappés were very good at – they could see this pathway, and they went for it, and when they had to put pressure on Monaco, they did, and in the end, the promise was fulfilled.

Mbappé pictured as a youngster at Monaco. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Even at 14, he made no secret of the fact that he wanted to become the best player in the world. It’s remarkable for a 14-year-old to have this level of confidence. Does that just come back to what you’re saying about him being built differently?

I really think so, I really do. I think you can look at every sport, and there will be someone made like him, and I think you can only go to the top with that.

You might be super talented, but you don’t really have the drive and ambition. We know a lot of players like that. They will have good careers, but they won’t be in that 1% or 0.5% of the greatest, the GOATs conversation. And he’s there because, in his mind, it was always the destiny, really, of making it that big.

He always wanted the responsibilities, he always wanted the leadership, he always wanted to be captain. It might not look like much, but for him, before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, taking the number 10 jersey because the number 10 was available. I know 99% of professional footballers at 19 with the number 10 available for France would not have taken it. I guarantee you that. And yet he was like: ‘Yeah, I’ll have it. I want the number 10. I always wanted the number 10. Why should I wait until I’m 25 to take the number 10 if it’s available at 19?’ Going into a World Cup where he was convinced he would shine, he took it, and I think massive balls, sure, a bit of arrogance, no problem.

But you know, we’re from Paris, we are born arrogant anyway, so there’s nothing unusual there for us, but for people from the outside, I can see it, sure, no problem. I would say high self-confidence, but that’s the incredible thing. And through the book, I hope you can see, there are a few moments like that where you understand the mindset that he has, saying that he would win the Ballon d’Or and the World Cup when he was six years old, because he was just adamant – there was no other way. It’s really remarkable, and I really believe that that kind of ambition and drive is very rare.

Mbappé is aiming to help France reach a third successive World Cup final. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

And there’s a cost to having that incredible talent – as you write about in the book, he was alienated to a degree, because he was special, even before he became super famous, and other players in his age group were jealous.

Yeah. It’s the fact that he was a bit on the spectrum, in a nice way, because he had a super high IQ, and at school, it was a bit hard to find his place, because there were times when he was a bit bored by the lessons, but also he felt a little bit different.

And after that, the most difficult was that he was this prodigy who other players would look at and have a bit of jealousy for sure. He used to get kicked a lot because of how he was playing, and stuff like that.

So, at times, I think it was quite difficult, but he always wanted this life too, because he always knew if you’re that good, then some people will be a bit jealous. He knew that if you’re that good, you can’t buy your baguettes on a Sunday morning like everybody else, he would cause riots. But that’s also the life that he always wanted and always dreamed of.

You write about issues with coaches at the academies. He didn’t like to defend; he was perceived as having a bit of an attitude problem. Do you think this has changed much as he’s grown older, or has his talent just become so pronounced that people overlook these flaws?

There’s a line from the mum in the book when she said: ‘He didn’t defend at four years old, he’s not going to defend now at 27.’ And okay, I see it, and it’s true to a certain extent. Sometimes I think he could do a bit more off the ball, for sure. When his team is out of possession, he has to press a bit more or defend.

But you find a way if you’re the Real Madrid manager, if you’re the France national team head coach, and they have found a way pretty well, I think, even at PSG, or at Monaco before.

The thing with Monaco, and that’s what we mentioned earlier, that first year was tough. Bruno Irles, who was the [underage] coach, really didn’t have him for the reasons that you mentioned, and maybe at the time, he was right to put pressure on Kylian to do a bit more, to have a better work ethic on the pitch.

But he was still a kid, and to make his life so difficult by shouting stuff that are not really nice to hear, move your ass and do this and do that, and you don’t do enough, and even when you score goals, and even when you’re good, it must be difficult, and that’s why he lost a lot of love for the game at that time.

He didn’t want to go to training, and in the end, it was pretty clear, from Monaco, it was either they got rid of that coach or moved Kylian and changed teams, which they did, or they would lose him, because he was not going to spend another year like this.

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[Monaco's sporting director] Luís Campos and the people at the club realised that they could not lose a gem like that, so they moved him on even quicker to the U19s, when he was only 15, going on 16, because he was already that good, and because a lot of people still believed in his talent, even if he was not working as hard as that other coach wished.

Jose Mourinho will likely be Mbappé's coach at Real Madrid for the 2026-27 season. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Looking now at what PSG have achieved since he’s left, I’d imagine it must be hard for him. Do you think that there are any elements of regret there, in terms of, if he stayed, he could have been part of that, or do you think his departure was just so inevitable, and paved the way for the club going in a different direction?

Maybe it paved the way. I think he felt it was the right time to realise the dream of all dreams, Real Madrid. We will never know if PSG could have won the Champions League with him. I think they would have, but we don’t know. But they were still very close to a final the season before with him, and that team would have just got better, even if it stayed with him in it.

From a Luis Enrique point of view, when Kylian left, it was like: ‘Okay, I’m going to do things like I want to now, because I don’t have this one incredible individual player that I need to integrate in a collective in a way.’

Once Kylian had left, it was all about the collective. Before that, it was all about Kylian plus the collective.

Real Madrid next season, whoever is the coach, but very likely José Mourinho, the question is Kylian plus the collective. But the problem for them is they also have Kylian plus Jude [Bellingham], Vinicius [Junior], plus the collective – it’s different from what PSG had.

And I know there’s no Champions League [trophy win], but he gave PSG seven great years with amazing performances at times, and things could have been better, but Real Madrid had been chasing him since he was 11, so at some point, it was right for them to get him.

Finally, what’s the general feeling and perception of how he’s done so far at Real Madrid? In recent times, the anti-Mbappeé online petition got significant traction. But I know that online and real life can be two very different things. So do you think he’ll stay long-term, or could he even potentially move this summer?

In the summer, no. Later, I don’t know, but the dream was always to play for Real Madrid, to live in Madrid.

He’s happy there, and I always find it difficult to question a player who scores almost 50 goals in back-to-back seasons.

I understand the petition, and I understand that those fans are very demanding – they booed Kylian, but they also booed Cristiano [Ronaldo], [Karim] Benzema, and [Alfredo] Di Stefano.

I understand this is part of the DNA and the culture, so there’s nothing unusual in that, and I think the way he saw the boos and the whistling this year was: it’s probably a good thing that they are booing me, because they booed who they love the most, like all those great players who came before him.

So he thrives on that kind of adversity to become stronger, and again, could he have done things differently this season? For sure. Could he defend a bit more and be a bit more of that kind of player? Yes, of course, he can, and I think he will get there with the right coach.

But I think they will love all his goals; they will love everything that he wins, because he will win a lot for them.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity

Kylian Mbappé: The Definitive Biography of the World Cup Star by Julien Laurens is published by Seven Dials. More info here.