Project Mbappe – the road to becoming France’s record scorer

Just Fontaine, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Thierry Henry, Olivier Giroud.

France have had their fair share of brilliant attacking players over the years.

But none better – in goalscoring terms at least – than Kylian Mbappe after his goals in his country’s World Cup opener against Senegal.

The Real Madrid forward has become France’s all-time record scorer, overtaking Giroud in the record books with his 58th goal for Les Bleus, aged just 27.

“Congratulations Kylian,” Giroud said on BBC One, working as a pundit for France’s game against Senegal. “I’m happy for him.

“It makes sense, it was expected. He will beat every single record – the number of caps and goals. I think he can easily reach 100 goals and maybe [beat] Miroslav Klose’s World Cup record. He’s delivered great performances in World Cups and big games.”

Mbappe’s 58 strikes came in just 99 games for France. Tuesday’s goals also put him on 14 in World Cups – just two behind Germany’s Klose, who holds the record with 16.

“A lot of team-mates ask me about him,” Giroud added. “For me it’s just ambition and confidence.

“He knows where he wants to go, he is a leader and you could see from a young age he was very at ease. He was mature for his age. He is a good team-mate, he is an incredible talent and I think he is a proper leader on and off the pitch.”

French football expert Julien Laurens believes Mbappe will become the greatest player in the country’s history.

“There is still a lot more to come from him but if we are to stop it right now, Zinedine Zidane and Michel Platini certainly remain the top two French players of all time,” said Laurens.

“After that it is Mbappe ahead of Thierry Henry, Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud and others. Even the ones from the old generation like Raymond Kopa.

“It is not just for his goals, but his leadership now as captain on the field, winning the World Cup in 2018, scoring a hat-trick in the final in 2022.

“I predict him to be the number one by the end of his career. He has at least one more World Cup after this and the Euros to play in so he will probably become the greatest player we have ever had.”

Having made his international debut in March 2017, it was not until Mbappe’s fourth appearance for France that he scored his first goal in a 4-0 World Cup qualifier against the Netherlands.

Earlier in the day, Paris St-Germain agreed an initial season-long loan deal to sign the then-18-year-old striker from Monaco, with the option to buy for £165.7m.

The Parisians would, of course, activate their option to sign Mbappe – making him the most expensive teenager in the history of football in the process.

By the time Mbappe had completed his move to the French capital, he was already a national hero.

He had spearheaded France’s run to World Cup glory in 2018, becoming the youngest French player to score at a World Cup and the second teenager – after Pele – to score in a World Cup final.

Finishing as the joint second-highest goalscorer in Russia, Mbappe was named the young player of the tournament in recognition of his performances.

By the time of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar he had established himself as France’s talisman.

The then-23 year old became just the second player after England’s Geoff Hurst to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final – despite losing to Lionel Messi’s Argentina on penalties.

Mbappe and, significantly, his entire family, have always had it in their mind they wanted the striker to reach the top of the global game. And so ‘Project Mbappe’ was born.

“Kylian was just school and football,” says childhood friend Rayan Viyanga in a BBC Sport documentary called Mbappe. “School, football, home.”

He was born on the outskirts of Paris in the suburb of Bondy in 1998, just five months after France won the World Cup for the first time.

The family flat overlooked the AS Bondy football pitches, where his father Wilfried was a player turned coach.

“Kylian was already one step ahead of many other players at AS Bondy,” Viyanga said. “He was advanced for his age group and wanted to play with the best. That was a strict rule of his, to play with the best.”

Laurens added: “As a kid, he learned La Marseillaise at the age of three just to be ready to sing it when that first cap would come.”

Mbappe – whose mother Fayza Lamari is a former professional handball player – pinned up pictures of idol Cristiano Ronaldo and watched old footage of Zidane, another Real Madrid superstar.

A bigger influence closer to home though was Jires Kembo Ekoko, his adopted brother, who was selected for the French Federation’s national academy at Clairefontaine years before Mbappe himself went there. Ekoko went on to play for Rennes in Ligue 1.

Matt Spiro, an author and French football expert, told BBC Sport: “Kylian initially found it a bit difficult at Clairefontaine. He was there for two years and during the first year, he certainly wasn’t the best in his group.

“Mbappe would play out on the wing and would quite frequently be in a sulky mood.

“He had a growth spurt, I think towards the end of his first year in Clairefontaine, and by the second year, he was really starting to look the business.”

But his rapid rise was no surprise, after all even Nike had come calling with free boots, aged just 10.

The forward, tracked by Europe’s biggest clubs from an early age, left his hometown of Paris for the glamour of Monaco at the age of 14.

He had spent time with Chelsea and Real Madrid but the Mbappe family were adamant that their son should stay in France during his teenage years.

Aged 16 years and 347 days, he became the youngest player in Monaco’s history – beating the record set by Henry in 1994 – when he appeared as an 88th-minute substitute against Caen.

Three months later, he became the club’s youngest scorer with his first senior goal against Troyes, beating another record previously set by Henry.

“When he broke through at Monaco, you could tell the talent was so unique,” said Laurens. “We have had great youngsters and talent, but he has something a little bit different.”

Soon after his arrival at Monaco, Mbappe and his new team-mates were set an assignment to design a magazine cover with an image of themselves on the front.

The most logical design would be a sports magazine, or perhaps a national weekly magazine such as Paris Match. Mbappe’s choice?

The internationally recognised Time Magazine.

And the headline he chose? El Maestro. The Master.

Only four years later, having led France to World Cup glory in Russia and joining Pele as only the second teenager to score in a World Cup final, those big dreams became a reality. His face appeared on the front of Time for real.

It was Mbappe’s ability to see the bigger picture despite his tender years that helped coin the term ‘Project Mbappe’.

The somewhat tongue-in-cheek concept, where children are given intense football coaching from an early age, exploded on social media following Mbappe’s rapid rise.

Its popularity is testament to the plans put in place by Mbappe’s family at a young age when they were aware of the precocious talent their son possessed.

In 2017, Mbappe became the most expensive teenager in the world when he turned down the lure of Real Madrid to join PSG. Real had to wait another seven years to get their man.

And with such hype, comes the inevitable ego.

“Ego is a necessary drive for success,” former PSG performance director Martin Buccheit told BBC Sport. “But it’s more about having a hand on the dial to control it.

“Kylian didn’t always have the hand on the on the dial. But for sure the family, the mum and the parents were really behind him. And I could feel that maybe the parents had the volume in their hands.”

Mbappe, who was made France captain by boss Didier Deschamps in 2023, but, still without a Champions League winners medal and yet to be awarded the Ballon d’Or, you get the feeling Project Mbappe has some way to run yet.

“He is a very self-centred guy, but once he got the armband he knew he had to be a proper leader,” added Laurens.

“Not only for his goals and assists, but I would be very surprised if he ends his career without winning the Ballon d’Or and at least one Champions League.

“In terms of the trophy cabinet, his would be better and bigger than Zidane and Platini but everything else such as the goalscoring record will too.”