Kylian Mbappe enjoys a unique status in the French game.
In the 41st minute of Paris Saint-Germain’s trip to Angers on Friday, PSG won a corner. By this point, Mbappe had scored twice and Angers were staring down the barrel of defeat, and probable confirmation of their relegation in the days to follow.
Mbappe walked over to take the corner, in between the Colombier and Jean Bouin stands, in front of the home supporters. They were not Angers’ most vocal ultras, it must be said. But the 24-year-old raised his arms, as if to encourage the crowd to generate some noise. They did. And they cheered him.
After his heroics in the World Cup in December, you can understand why Mbappe has almost imperial status. In Qatar, Mbappe became only the second player ever to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final, the first being England’s Geoff Hurst in 1966. No player has scored more on that stage, after Mbappe’s goal in the final four years previously in Moscow. Only Vava, of Brazil, has also scored in consecutive World Cup finals (notching twice in 1958 and once more in 1962).
Continuous record breaking contributes greatly to Mbappe’s aura in the same way that it deified his team-mate Lionel Messi, in Barcelona, and still does today. They are players who create history with such regularity that they are but certain to do so again in the future. Those watching on are acutely aware of this and sense the importance of glimpsing even a small part of it.
