London, June 17
Kylian Mbappe is in the place he wants to be. In Real Madrid, in his dreamland; in the galaxy of his idols, Zinedine Zidane, Cristiano Ronaldo.
He is smiling more; he is joyful and relaxed, almost liberated from the gold-caged prison that PSG was in the last few years, the French newspapers would diligently note. It’s how France wants him to be in the European Championship, a smiling and happy Mbappe, unshackled and unchained, in the freest of spirits, in the mood to sweep away every human obstacle in his path. “A happy man is more likely to play well,” he would say before the friendlies, ahead of the European Championship.Last European Championship, he was not in the place he wanted to be. The world was not in a space it wanted to be, picking broken pieces of life from the pandemic, stumbling in fear. He might have been just a victim of his circumstances, as the world around him; he failed to score in all four games of his country; had just 14 tries at goal, of which only four were on target. Later he fluffed a spot-kick in the round of 16 shootout defeat against Switzerland. When he walked back to the tunnel, spectators abused him racially. “They called me a monkey,” he would say. When he checked his phone, he discovered a volley of messages with racial undertones in his social media accounts. He cried that night. A sole assist (penalty in the group against Portugal) and a delightful back-heel pre-assist for Antoine Griezmann to set up a goal in the Switzerland game were but rare flickers of fire in a frosty tournament for him.His form pained him; the criticism ripped him apart. “I received the message that my ego was what made us lose, that I wanted to take up too much space, and that without me, therefore, we might have won. The most important thing is the French national team and if the French national team is happier without me, I’ll go,” he would say before the next season, in a moment of rare emotional outpouring.
But France would cajole back their unearthliest talent since Zidane. A year later, he netted a hat-trick of more steel-will rather than silken-skill in the World Cup final, a night where he ended the most tragic of tragic heroes in football folklore. In reality, there is a note of melancholia in his career. He was only 19 when he held the World Cup aloft, but thereafter, precious silverware has cruelly tantalised him. Second-place finishes in World Cup and Champions League, a heartbreaking European Championship, a continuing streak of unfulfilled renown in Champions League, endless years waiting for the transfer to Real Madrid. Boredom of the pointless pursuit of stacking titles, accolades and trinkets of trophies in the French league. Suddenly, the teenager is a full-blown adult, 25, going on 26. Where are the trophies? Where is the glory? Where is the Ballon d’Or? Of course, Mbappe is still 25, nudging to his peak years, the best yet to be. But with outrageous talents like him, the expectations are thrust too much too soon. It’s the fate of all super-athletes, the scales that measure their success and failure are more stringent than they are for lesser talents. So six barren years outside of the French league title was a slight at his inability to inspire his team.
It
cannot be further from reality, but that is the capricious burden of being an otherworldly talent.
