Kylian Mbappe’s glittering career is littered with European heartbreak – will Euro 2024 change that?

The day Kylian Mbappe announced as France captain it was in March 2023. The night he won the armband, however, could have happened three months earlier, on another continent, with the World Cup at stake. Mbappe can cut a languid figure, striding elegantly across the pitch before sliding through the gears and reaching speeds few can rival. However, there is video footage of Mbappé, the motivator, galvanizing France after a no-show performance at the first time in Lusail.

“It’s the game of your life,” he said. “We can’t do worse than we did.” Mbappe certainly managed to galvanize himself. O departure of your life It proved to be something no one else had in their life either. He imitated Geoff Hurst by scoring a hat-trick in the World Cup final. He found the net four times, however, to the extent that he also scored in the resulting penalty shootout. France still lost. Mbappe may have the bittersweet distinction of producing the best performance in a World Cup final defeat.

Just Didier Deschamps really know how much this influenced your decision. Without Mbappé’s tour de force against Argentina, with Hugo Lloris and Raphael Varane ending their international careers, Antonio Griezmann Was it the new captain? Atletico Madrid’s top scorer often seems like Deschamps’ most trusted lieutenant, the player he reinvented as a World Cup midfielder to respond to an injury crisis, the footballer he picked for a record 84 consecutive matches. But Griezmann was named vice-captain. In international football, even more than in the club game, the armband can seem like a status symbol given to celebrities. Deschamps, a grounded figure who was the antithesis of the celebrity captain in his playing days, may have appointed Mbappe for a different kind of symbolic reason.

This is Mbappe’s team now; perhaps it was destined to happen since his rise to prominence as a teenager. His friend Ousmane Dembele commands the opposite flank. Even the presence of Olivier Giroud, whose possession of the French goalscoring record will not last long until retirement, before the younger man overtakes him, reflects his status as Mbappé’s ideal foil.

Without Karim Benzema, there is no longer a question of whether he and Mbappé are compatible. Instead, a Frenchman will belatedly inherit the number 9 shirt from another for Real Madrid, a year after the elder accepted Saudi riches and the younger turned down a world-record move to the Pro League. The compatriots may seem like opposites: Benzema is unquestionably a great Champions League player. But with 12 World Cup goals – as many as Pelé managed – and four in finals, more than anyone else, even before penalties are included, and a Golden Boot to his name, Mbappe has made an indelible impact on the biggest stages. .

But there is a curiosity in a career. There may be a temptation to downplay his tally of 256 goals for Paris Saint-Germain and five Ligue Un player of the year awards, plus two records compiled by the 25-year-old. Unlike Benzema, Mbappé is not yet a great Champions League player. He is certainly not a European Championship legend; their Euro 2020 was goalless – Benzema scored four after his return from international exile – and Mbappé’s missed penalty kick in a shoot-out resulted in Switzerland’s elimination.

The much-discussed move to Real could represent a belated recognition that Paris Saint-Germain will not win the Champions League; at least in PSG’s incarnation, Mbappe didn’t know. His medal collection is vast and still contains significant gaps. For club and country, Mbappé did not conquer Europe.

The contexts are different: he only played in one European Championship. He lived through PSG’s annual disappointments. If the accusation is that they were protected by a big salary and emerged in the context of what could be seen as an easier life in the French league, Mbappe has been the odd one out. France is the only one among Western Europe’s top five leagues to export the vast majority of its local talent. Of the 11 starters for the 2022 World Cup final, only one played in France: Mbappé. It means that, for many, it has an exoticism, seen only in World Cups, European Championships and Champions Leagues. His candidacy for the vacant title of best player in the world is now being tested in different environments: from Real’s galaxy of stars, as leader of France.

And – assuming an injury scare that meant he played just 15 minutes in a friendly against Canada isn’t an impediment – ​​some of the pressure comes from precedent. Two of the French captains who won the silver medal, Deschamps and Lloris, were very different types of players. The former dominated a European Championship like no one before or since.

Michel Platini’s nine goals in the summer of 1984 remain unmatched, and not just statistically. No European has scored more than seven goals in a major international tournament until Mbappé’s eight goals at the 2022 World Cup. There is a Les Bleus tradition of inspiring leadership, with and without the armband. If Mbappe follows in Deschamps’ footsteps, perhaps the coach chose him more with Platini in mind.