Football star Kylian Mbappé: “The Prince of Bondy” takes revenge

In the second preliminary round match of Group D – Austria against France – the next superstar will enter the European Championship action on Monday evening (June 17, 9 p.m.) in Dortmund: the French striker Kylian Mbappé (25). Since March 2023 he has been captain of the French national football team – also known as “Les Bleus” or “Équipe Tricolore” -; at the 2018 World Cup he became world champion at just 19 years of age and was also named the best young player of the tournament.

Kylian Mbappé – Childhood in Bondy

Kylian Mbappé was born on December 20, 1998 in Bondy, a suburb in the north-east of Paris. Bondy is part of the notorious banlieue, where the population grew rapidly due to the construction of large housing projects in the 1960s. The typical challenges: unemployment, social tensions, limited prospects for young people. Violence and crime are also not uncommon.

This environment had a lasting impact on the young Kylian. “Growing up in Bondy meant constantly having to prove yourself,” he added. “It wasn’t always easy, but it made me strong,” he added.

Sports-loving family and football

In this difficult environment, it was above all his family and football that helped Mbappé to stay on the right path. His father, Wilfried Mbappé from Cameroon, worked as a football coach and his mother, Fayza Lamari with Algerian roots, was a former handball player. The sports-loving parents recognized their son’s potential early on. To this day, his mother manages the “Prince of Bondy”, as he is called in the local media.

Mbappé, then five years old, started out in 2005 at the local football club AS Bondy. Under the guidance of his father and other coaches, he played there until 2011. He then moved to the INF Clairefontaine youth academy in the small community of Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines in the southwest of Paris. In 2013, the then teenager began his professional career in Monaco. In 2017, he left AS Monaco and eventually moved to the world-class club Paris Saint-Germain, who was then the second most expensive player in football history. After his contract expires, Mbappé will move to Spanish Champions League winners Real Madrid on a free transfer for the 2024/25 season. The now arguably best-paid football player in the world signed a contract until June 30, 2029. Rumors are circulating about salaries and the like. “For weeks there has been speculation that the free transfer deal would involve a signing-on fee of more than 100 million euros,” .

One thing is certain: after the European Championship, the star striker with the friendly face and infectious laugh will be joining the Royal team.

Kylian Mbappé’s letter to “children in Bondy”

Despite his rapid rise and global fame, Kylian Mbappé has never forgotten his roots. He has renovated sports facilities and set up a foundation that works with disadvantaged young people and supports projects that help young people achieve their dreams.

and the “children in the banlieue”, Kylian Mbappé wrote back in 2020: “Our neighbourhood is an incredible melting pot of different cultures – French, African, Asian, Arab, from all parts of the world. People outside France always talk badly about the banlieues, but if you’re not from here, you can’t really understand what it’s like. People talk about ‘thugs’ as if they were invented here. But thugs are all over the world. All over the world, there are people who have a hard time… When I was a kid, I saw some of the toughest guys in the neighbourhood carrying groceries for my grandmother. You never see this facet of our culture on the news. You only hear about the bad sides, never the good.”

Latest record on Instagram

Kylian Mbappé has 118 million followers on Instagram (as of June 2024). And it is here that he has already broken a first record together with another world star of the current European Championship. :

“A dream come true. I am very happy and proud to be part of my dream club @realmadrid. It is impossible to explain how happy and excited I feel at this moment. I can’t wait to see you madridistas and thank you for your incredible support,” he posted in Spanish, English and French.

So far so normal, but one of the three photos belonging to the post was something special: It shows Mbappé as a child visiting Real Madrid. Club legend Cristiano Ronaldo (39) posed with him for the picture. But it gets even better, the Portuguese football star commented on Mbappé’s post with the words: “Looking forward to seeing you at the Bernabéu.”

With its current 5,861,000 likes, it is “the most liked comment (as of June 17: 5,861,476 likes) ever written on a social media platform.” For comparison: “Most recently, there was a TikTok comment about GTA 6 that also broke records,” says the gaming news portal.