Kylian Mbappe’s talent was obvious from an early age. He wasn’t, to paraphrase a well-known Chelsea legend, “one of the bottle.”
Mbappe’s Bondy coaches were well aware of this. Those who saw him play for the little club on Paris’ outskirts knew. Serge Daniel Boga, a former Chelsea scout, agreed.
He saw Mbappe early on the tip of a friend who worked at Nike. He was inevitably smitten with the forward, who was just 11 years old at the time.
“I called everyone at Chelsea whom I dealt with, like Jim Fraser. I said ‘Listen, I have this kid you have to look at,’” Boga told Goal in 2018.
Tuchel delighted with Lukaku’s goal on his second Chelsea debut. Post-match press conference with Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel following the 2-0 victory over Arsenal. Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has reminded the rest of the Premier League that Romelu Lukaku’s love affair with the club has only just begun, following the striker’s goal against Arsenal on his second appearance. Lukaku returned to the Blues last week and scored his first goal for the club 15 minutes into a 2-0 win at the Emirates Stadium.
A trial was set up immediately. Mbappe and his family moved to England in 2012, and the young French sensation spent a week training with the club’s Under-12s, which included Tammy Abraham and Jeremie Boga at the time.
“It was a wonderful experience,” Mbappe recalled in an interview with The Telegraph four years ago. “Chelsea was the first great club, the first big club, that I went to visit. So it was a real discovery for me.
“I was coming from my grassroots, amateur club. It was a whole new world. Of course, I had an idea what a great football club was like but I was really impressed by the working culture and the mentality of wanting to be better day-in, day-out.”
Mbappe played for Chelsea against Charlton at the completion of his week-long trial. He paired Abraham in a 7-0 triumph, with ‘Kylian 10’ inscribed on the back of his shirt.
The discussion was followed by a meeting with two Chelsea players: Didier Drogba and Florent Malouda. Mbappe has subsequently remarked that it has strengthened his resolve to reach the pinnacle of the professional game.
What happened next was reminiscent of a sliding door. If Chelsea had been convinced and given Mbappe a contract following that week-long trial, the Blues might have acquired one of the most talented players of his generation.
That did not occur. Instead, the club chose to be cautious. Mbappe was welcomed back for another week, with the club eager to give him another chance. That offer was declined.
“I remember what the mother (Fayza) said to this day,” Boga explained. “She spoke in French to Fraser and I was translating. She said to me, ‘Listen, my boy won’t be coming back. If they want him they have to take him now or in five year’s time they will be coming back to buy him for €50 million.’”
Chelsea’s hesitancy in signing Mbappe was focused on his off-the-ball work. Or lack of it, to be more specific. “Defensively, he wasn’t there yet,” Boga added. “When he got the ball, he was unbelievable, but without the ball, he didn’t work a lot.”
Perhaps the Blues expected too much from Mbappe. He hadn’t played for a professional club before, hadn’t been exposed to the same level of coaching as the likes of Abraham, Boga, and several others.
Mbappe has admitted his week at Chelsea changed his mindset. It made him more aware of the demands placed upon young footballers, particularly in the English game.
“Visiting this infrastructure helped me, actually, with my development,” he said. “I saw things differently because up until then I had just a French mentality. After that, I could pick what was positive in other mentalities and build my own.”
Real Madrid approached him in the years that followed, and he spent time on trial with the club’s Under-15s. Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, and every other club in France’s top flight were also interested. He chose Monaco after two years at Clairefontaine, despite being only 15 years old.
Mbappe became Monaco’s youngest-ever player aged 16 years and 347 days, breaking Thierry Henry’s record. His rise over the next five and a half years has been phenomenal.
The France international, who does not turn 23 until December, is a World Cup winner and four-time Ligue 1 champion. Other domestic trophies have been awarded.
He’s also the second most expensive player in history, with a £154 million move from Monaco to Paris Saint-Germain trailing only that of colleague Neymar.
“He’s a shark, in his mentality,” Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel, who worked with Mbappe for two seasons at PSG, told BT Sport earlier this year. “He wants to grab everything that he can have. This is the mentality that you need.
“And I mean it in a positive way because he’s a nice guy in private and in person, super nice guy, super intelligent, super funny.
“But once he’s on the pitch he’s a shark and that’s what the best guys are. If you drop one drop of blood in the water they arrive. This is Kylian.”
Paris Saint-Germain launched the most high-profile recruitment push this summer in order to win the Champions League for the first time. Lionel Messi, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Achraf Hakimi, Sergio Ramos, Gini Wijnaldum, and others have arrived at Parc des Princes.
The Ligue 1 titans, on the other hand, have a problem: their shark is looking for new waters to hunt in.
Mbappe has turned down many contract offers from PSG, and his current contract is set to expire next summer. Real Madrid has reportedly made a bid of £137 million, which was lodged on Sunday.
It’s no secret that Mbappe has always wanted to play for Real Madrid, to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo.
He might finally have that chance now. Chelsea, though, did not get theirs with Mbappe.