'Only the second teenager to have scored a goal in a World Cup Final! Welcome to the club - it's great to have some company!' - Pele
This was the praise lauded upon Kylian Mbappe who, at just 19 years of age, led France to triumph at the 2018 World Cup. As golden confetti rained down, millions across the globe watched as the young man kissed the iconic trophy; the heir to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the best footballer in the world had announced himself. It was his crowning moment.
In Kylian Mbappe: The Definitive Biography, Julien Laurens, the world's leading French football journalist, paints a vivid portrait of Mbappe's meteoric rise to global stardom. After a decade covering Kylian's career, Julien has had unprecedented access to the player, his inner circle, his coaches, teammates and family. Exploring Mbappe's humble upbringing in the suburbs of Paris and schooling at the famed Clairefontaine academy, his peerless rise with AS Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain, as well as his dream move to Real Madrid where his career has reached new heights, this extensive biography crafts an intimate account of Kylian's life.
Julien takes us into the inner workings of Mbappe's psyche, as we witness how becoming a world superstar at just 19 affected the young Parisian. From the complex relationship he had with his boyhood club and its hierarchy to valiantly losing against Lionel Messi's Argentina in the 2022 World Cup Final, and becoming the new face of Real Madrid's galacticos, Julien shows us how the Mbappe that is poised to star at the 2026 World Cup is unrecognisable from the one who won it with France in 2018.
