Kylian Mbappe, the French soccer star whose entire existence is devoted to high performance, eating right, sleeping right, and turning himself into the defining talent of his generation, slumped into his seat feeling a little jet-lagged. At 23, Kylian Mbappe––who reportedly has a net worth of $110 Million, according to Sport Adda, might expect his finely tuned body to bounce back quickly. But it wasn’t just the sluggishness of returning from a working vacation that took him to Los Angeles, New York, and the NBA Draft. It was also the 50-plus-game season in his legs. And the return to practice. And an off-season that lasted barely four weeks. Kylian Mbappe Net Worth
Inside the Parc des Princes, Paris Saint-Germain’s home stadium on the edge of the city, Mbappé could be forgiven for feeling the effects of it all.
“They say you get back an hour per day,” he said in French, with California still on his mind. “So I’ve got a few more days of suffering ahead of me.”
Mbappé would recover just in time to pile on more jet lag, seven time zones away on a promotional tour of Japan. By the time it was over, he’d have to launch headfirst into a European soccer season with a World Cup crammed into the middle of it. There are no breaks for the player who made his pro debut at 16, racked up five French championships, and is already a world champion. But after a decade defined by two all-time greats— his boyhood idol Cristiano Ronaldo and his current teammate Lionel Messi, now 37 and 35—he is right on the trajectory he’s designed for himself. Mbappé is their natural heir.
What sets him apart is that he understands innately something that Messi and Ronaldo had to learn on the fly: In order to be a global icon in the world’s most popular sport in 2022, it’s no longer enough just to play that sport. You must play it brilliantly, virally, and embrace everything that comes alongside it—a permanent reinvestment in your own image.
Mbappé has 27 million more Instagram followers than two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry and 60 million more than Tom Brady. He has accessed a level of global celebrity that tends to come only through soccer, the White House, or having the last name Kardashian. That’s how a video of Mbappé draining baskets on a Pop-a-Shot machine in Brooklyn can draw nearly six million views in a matter of days. But it’s all part of Mbappé’s larger plan, the one he’s been working on since he first kicked a ball in a concrete suburb north of Paris. Even at 23, he isn’t shy about precisely what he’s trying to do here. Kylian Mbappe Net Worth
Here are a few things Kylian Mbappe revealed to WSJ. Magazine…
Mbappé on his lifetime goal:
“I’ve always wanted people to remember my name,” Mbappé says. “That was a personal ambition. I’ve always wanted to write my name in soccer history.”
Arsène Wenger, former Arsenal manager and dean of French soccer coaches on Mbappé:
“It’s as if he was born to be where he is today,” he says. “The question about him now isn’t ‘Is he the best?’ It’s ‘How far can this kid go?’ We forget his age—and yet, everyone knows who he is.”
“He’s clearly the successor,” says Wenger, who was on the long list of people who tried to sign Mbappé at 16. “But he also combines their qualities. He’s a goal scorer and a creator. He’s a finisher and a passer…. He’s not just expressing his talent—he also creates the unexpected.”
Mbappé on his beginnings at AS Monaco:
“I was in the public eye very, very young. And I was considered to be very talented,” he says matter-of-factly. “So there’s always been a lot of goodwill around me. People wanted to help.”
Mbappé on his “cocoon” of family and chosen family that he has surrounded himself with (his father, Mbappé Lottin, and Mbappé’s mother, Fayza Lamari):
There is a coterie of lawyers and assorted helpers in the cocoon too, but ultimately it’s always been Kylian, Fayza, and Wilfrid, navigating a world that nothing had prepared them for. “I was protected, and it grew slowly, in a crescendo,” he says. “I wasn’t a star at 14 years old.”
Mbappé on his super-competitive nature:
“There are people who want to have fun and just enjoy things—and I respect that view,” he explains, also dismissing that view. “But I chose this life wanting to win and wanting to be competitive…. You don’t just announce, ‘I want to win’ and sit on your couch every day. Every day, you work on it, you increase that appetite to win in everything you do.”
Mbappé on the recognition and fame he received after winning the World Cup:
When he returned as a newly minted world champion, his place in soccer’s firmament had shifted. “The more famous you get, the more people want to know about you,” Mbappé says. “They want to know which pajamas you sleep in, where you live, how you spend your time. That border is getting thinner all the time. Mine hangs by a thread. But that’s the way it is. I knew what I was getting into.”
Mbappé on Messi and Ronaldo’s careers, and charting his own path:
“I don’t think you can copy and paste their careers to make history,” he says. Instead, Mbappé is blending them. He has the ferocious athleticism of Ronaldo in his prime and a pace that has been clocked at more than 23 miles per hour. But he has the on-field vision and good-boy image of Messi. And in one respect at least, he’s already ahead of both: Mbappé is a World Cup winner. Messi and Ronaldo are not.
Mbappé on Messi and Ronaldo’s soccer legacy:
“They changed the way people approach the game,” Mbappé says. “I think that’s why their rivalry obsessed so many people. They don’t see soccer the same way. They don’t see life the same way. And they went at it tooth and nail for more than a decade—for me, that was my entire childhood.”
Mbappé on eventually deciding to decline Real Madrid’s offer and stay with PSG:
“I really thought it was the best possible decision at that time,” he says in hindsight. “But the context today is different.”
Mbappé on going into this year’s World Cup:
“My status in the game has changed,” he says. “That’s the beauty of the World Cup. Every player is completely different from what they were at the previous one. A million things happen in four years in soccer.” Kylian Mbappe Net Worth
Mbappé on whether he feels ready to take center stage in a post-Messi, post-Ronaldo world, for a decade or more:
“I don’t think I have a choice,” he says. “The brake pedal doesn’t work anymore.”
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Video directed by Barbara Anastacio
Photos: Gregory Harris for WSJ. Magazine
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