In high-level football, nobody will make a place for you. Ego, self-love, isn’t just the caprice of stars. It’s also the will to give the best of yourself He understood that his early triumph had upset football’s all-important hierarchies. Returning to PSG, he immediately reassured Paris’s Brazilian star Neymar: “I’m not going to walk on your flowerbeds. I’ll be a candidate for the Ballon d’Or [the award for world’s best footballer] this year because you won’t be, but I promise I don’t want to take your place.” Mbappe became the first player to net FIVE goals in a competitive game for PSG in January when his side beat non-league outfit Pays de Cassell 7-0 in the French Cup, with the forward also grabbing an assist for Neymar. He grew up practically inside the local football club, AS Bondy. “In the Parisian suburbs there are football fields everywhere,” he enthuses. “People here live for football. I was born with the sports ground facing my window.” It’s no wonder, he adds, that Paris’s suburbs are perhaps the deepest talent pool in global football, producing players such as Paul Pogba, Blaise Matuidi, N’Golo Kanté and Riyad Mahrez.

PSG are said to have offered Mbappe a revised one-year deal which includes a guaranteed sale clause. This basically means that they will let him leave next summer if he wishes, but instead of leaving on a free transfer, the move will have to include a transfer fee due to his extension until 2025. It remains to be seen if some version of this contract has been signed. Likewise, football fans are wondering how Real Madrid will react if they will be forced to pay a transfer fee after being led to believe that the player will be available for free in a year's time. Winning the World Cup made Mbappé a national hero. Does he consider himself a star? “I think so. If your face is everywhere in the city, everywhere in the world, that’s for sure. Being a star is a status, but it doesn’t make me a better person than others.” Still, he admits: “You do always compare yourself with the best in your sport, just as the baker compares himself with the best bakers around him. Who makes the best croissant, the best pain au chocolat? I watch matches of other great players to see what they’re doing. ‘I know how to do this, but can the other guy do it too?’ I think other players watch me, too. I think that pushes players to raise their game, just as Messi was good for Ronaldo and Ronaldo was good for Messi.” Mbappe added another two goals in the Champions League on Tuesday, as well as laying on an assist for Lionel Messi, as PSG roared past Maccabi Haifa 7-2. His scoring streak was extended to three games in the following weekend as they bagged what proved to be PSG's winner from the penalty spot in a thrilling 4-3 home success over Troyes.Kids in performance-sports families learn that they never arrive. Each step up is just another learning opportunity. In Monaco’s first team, the teenaged Mbappé encountered the veteran Colombian striker Radamel Falcao, freshly returned from unhappy loan spells with Manchester United and Chelsea. His scoring run continued against Ajaccio a week later as he bagged a pair of second-half goals as PSG won in a 5-0 romp. The former Monaco man's first was a scrappy goal from inside the box, yet the second could barely have been any different as he scored a stunning volley that underlined his qualities and sent the Corsican side into Ligue 2. While PSG suffered huge disappointment against Real Madrid in the Champions League last 16, Mbappe did score in the 1-0 win in the home leg. He sat out the Coupe de France win against Chateauroux and the Ligue 1 clash against Angers and came on as a second-half sub in the 1-0 defeat at Rennes. The nearer the match came, the less stressed I was’: Paul Pogba, left, and Mbappé celebrate winning the World Cup for France by defeating Croatia 4–2 in the final on 15 July 2018, in Moscow. Mbappé, aged 19 at the time, scored the fourth goal for Les Bleus David Ramos - FIFA // Getty Images

I took time to start talking about it, because I wasn’t ready,” he admits. “I had a lot of things to digest: my change of status, my new life. But I have always opposed all types of violence.” An 18-year-old Kylian Mbappé after scoring for Monaco against Manchester City in the Champions League. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian He finished on a career-best tally of 29 Ligue 1 goals after netting a penalty in a 3-2 loss against Clermont on the final day of the season. He might have hit 30 for the first time but tried to set up Lionel Messi for a goodbye goal - the Argentine missed a simple chance.

Kylian Mbappe 2020-21 stats

Mbappé’s parents made him take school seriously, and he was also a not-very-talented flautist at Bondy’s conservatory, but football came first. At AS Bondy, he says, “My father was my coach for 10 years. He helped construct the style of player I wanted to become. But I never felt the pressure of, ‘You have to become a footballer.’ Above all, it was a passion.” Kylian Mbappé was 18 when he walked into the changing room of the French national team. “It’s very difficult,” he recalls, “because great players don’t want to give you their place. That’s what makes them great players. They especially don’t want to give you their place if you arrive with the label of ‘Future Great Player’.” Within a year, Mbappé and France had won the World Cup in Moscow. There was evidence of a hangover from that loss in PSG's following match against Brest at the weekend, and indeed they would have dropped points had it not been for the striker. In the final minute of the match, he latched onto a pass from Lionel Messi, sped clear of the defence and rounded the goalkeeper to tap into an empty net. It was a finish that gave PSG a 2-1 win on what had promised to be a frustrating evening. Mbappe bagged a brace in his next game, sparing Paris' blushes to help secure a 4-3 win over Lille.