At 19, Frenchman Kylian Mbappe was being hailed as the next great footballer of his generation, Messi or Ronaldo, in a new era of football fans. "If you gave me one billion [euros], I wouldn't sell it," Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi said of Mbappe in May. "He's part of a group of five or six top players that will soon rule the world," Arsene Wenger, the legendary French football manager who ran Arsenal for more than two decades, said in June.
But Mbappe is more than the future. Now he is an international star.He is France's catalyst, a dynamic superstar who has succeeded where Messi and Ronaldo failed: bringing home the World Cup. He may be young, but his international gig has been nothing short of a superstar party. When he left Monaco for PSG last August, his €145m transfer fee was enough to make him the second most expensive player in the world (behind Neymar Jr.). In his first season with Paris, Mbappe showed himself well; scored 21 goals and had 16 assists.
He carried that momentum through to the World Cup, where he established himself as one of the bright young faces of France national team. Alongside established stars like Paul Pogba and Antoine Griezmann, Mbappé is not alone; showed why he is the best player on the team despite his lack of experience. (He's the youngest player at a year and a half.) He became the first teenager since Pele in 1958 to score two goals in an international tournament.
(Pelé congratulated him on Twitter: "Congratulations @KMbappe. With 2 World Cup goals at such a young age, you're in good company! Good luck with your other games. Except against)
The size and grace he displayed is one of the reasons Mbappe already has over 14 million Instagram followers. It's also why he's being commercially promoted as one of football's next global faces – driving many of Nike's marketing campaigns across Europe and receiving custom Nike Off-White football boots from Louis Vuitton Creative Director Virgil Abloh.
In addition, Mbappe became the latest celebrity to be immortalized in wax at Paris' famous Grevin Museum.
That Mbappé is blossoming so quickly shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's followed him since his Monaco days. When I interviewed him last year, it was easy to understand that there were big things for him: the World Cup, the Champions League, the Ballon d'Or. "This is just the beginning," said Mbappé. "[Legacy]" is something you see when you're at the end and trying to anticipate what's to come.I still have a long way to go before I stop playing. I'm not thinking about my legacy yet."
