Mbappe took an exclusive interview with The Athletic, and talked about Making history, the Ballon d’Or, and mid-air Liverpool talks.

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TA interview with Mbappe - Part 1: I want to speak different languages, fun to learn a new culture

TA interview with Mbappe - Part 3: Ronaldo used to be my idol, now he’s my friend

Interview PART 2

As a boy, growing up in a northern suburb of Paris, it was obvious that his life would be shaped by football. Perhaps you have seen the photographs of a young Mbappe in a bedroom decorated with posters of Ronaldo. Did he have a favourite Premier League team? It was, he says, all about “Cristiano, when he was at Manchester United.”

Yet his first hero was Zinedine Zidane and his real love was always Real Madrid. The young Mbappe wanted to emulate his hero, to play like him, to do the Zidane turn and even look like him.

Was it true, at the age of 10, that he went into a barber’s and asked for “a Zidane” — hair on the sides and nothing in the middle? Did he not realise the superstar of French football was, in fact, losing his hair?

The question is asked with an element of trepidation, but Mbappe is quite happy to laugh at himself.

“Ten years old? Please! I was younger! But yeah, it’s true. You know when you’re a kid, you don’t think. You want to look like your idols. It was not something crazy in my mind. I wanted to be like him, but I didn’t know the truth. Just a little kid wanting to be like his hero.”

Zidane is now the head coach of the France national side, taking over a team that were widely seen as favourites to win the summer World Cup, only to come up short against Spain in the semi-finals.

“We did three World Cups — two finals, one semi-final,” a reflective Mbappe says of his nine years with Didier Deschamps, the previous manager. “It’s about details. And we were not ready in every detail to make the World Cup (this year). You have to be ready at the moment. When you’re not, someone else takes your seat.”

Did he watch the final? “Yeah. I’m a guy who can accept my situation really fast. When I win, I go to the next (challenge). And when I lose, I have to accept. Because I can analyse — fast — what happened, and why. So I watched (the final) with friends and my girlfriend. And it was OK.”

Not too painful? “It’s part of life. You have to accept there is only one team in every competition who wins the trophy. You have to say congratulations and fight for the next one.”

The man sitting here today has 22 goals in 22 World Cup games and, aged 19, became the first teenager since Pele to score in a final when France won the 2018 tournament in Russia. Ten of Mbappe’s goals came in this summer’s competition and nobody can accuse him of exaggeration when he points out, almost Ronaldo-esque, “they were great goals”. Spectacular, in many cases.

“I always wanted to break records and (make sure) that people remembered my name,” he says. “But I have to be honest, I didn’t expect to be the top scorer of all time at the World Cup, at 27.

“The World Cup is the competition of the big stars, the biggest players in the history of the game. I used to dream about playing in this competition — not even winning it, just playing — so it’s completely crazy to be that man. Especially when the guy before me was Lionel Messi... yeah, it’s history.”

In the process, Mbappe has established himself as France’s leading all-time scorer, with 66 goals from 106 appearances. That, he says, was always a target but can he reach 100?

“The problem I have is there are two guys (Ronaldo for Portugal, and Messi with Argentina) who have shown it is possible. If you’d asked me before, I would have told you ‘no’. But now, they have shown the way. So why not?”

He is entitled to that confidence when, in Mourinho’s words, he is playing football “on a stratospheric level.” Add in the 42 goals Mbappe scored for Madrid in 44 games last season and it is easy to understand why many people, Mourinho included, have nominated him as a worthy recipient of the Ballon d’Or.

It is not, Mbappe says, “an obsession”. Equally, he would be thrilled to get his hands on the trophy.

“I have no shame (in saying that). I’m not scared to say what I think, even if sometimes people can say, ‘What is this guy saying?’ It’s not a shame to be honest. I have never said, ‘I’m going to win it’. But I think I had a good year. Many people have said I had a good year and connected me with the trophy. So let’s see what can happen.”

He regards the Premier League and La Liga as “the best in the world” and “the most competitive” and that’s how we get talking about how close he was, aged 18, to moving to England — Liverpool, to be precise — instead of Paris Saint-Germain.

“It was while I was playing in Monaco,” he recalls. “I had to take a decision. And yes, I was close to Liverpool. My mum was a big fan of Jurgen Klopp and the favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there.

“I didn’t listen because I wanted to play in my city, Paris. I didn’t want to leave my country before I was someone. But yes, my mum was always saying, ‘Liverpool — you’re going to be there, playing at Anfield, it’s going to be insane for you.’ I was like, ‘OK!’

“She went there (for) the first step of the negotiations. She went to the city, the stadium, she met the people. She was like, ‘It’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club.’

"She went to Anfield and fell in love with it. She watched a few games alone, to feel the atmosphere, because she wanted to imagine me in this stadium.

“All the time we were talking. ‘What do you think, Mum?’ She’d say, ‘For me, you have to go to Liverpool. I said, ‘OK, OK, OK!’ because Jurgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him.”

How did they keep these talks secret? By holding them at 37,000 feet. They took place in a private jet, taking off from Blackpool on England's north-west coast, picking up Mbappe in Nice, southern France, and circling in the sky while negotiations took place. And nobody would ever have known about it, perhaps, but for Klopp letting it slip during the World Cup.

“I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he was explaining his project,” says Mbappe, making a circular motion with his finger. “I said, ‘You don’t need to convince me. You’re Jurgen Klopp, it’s Liverpool, a great club, so of course if I’m here, I have some interest. But I have other things, other projects, that are also good.’ I said to him, ‘Whatever decision I take is going to be a good decision because we are talking about some of the biggest clubs in the world.’

“It’s a funny story (more circular motions). But in the end, I took the decision to go to PSG because for me, born and raised in Paris, there was no better feeling than to show I could be a star in my home town.”

He was a six-time Ligue 1 champion at Parc des Princes, winning 15 trophies before his move to Madrid in 2024. But is there ever a pang of envy about what he left behind in France? Did he watch his former team win back-to-back Champions Leagues in the two years since his departure and think it could have been him lifting the trophy?

“Could be! Could be!” he says, smiling. “But no. I’d arrived at the end of an era. I did seven years (at PSG). We had a final, semi-finals, quarter-finals. But it was time to go and they moved on to something else. They bought six or seven players and changed everything. And they won. Congratulations to them.

"But when I took the decision to leave PSG, my time was up. I did everything I could (for them) and I think I did great. But I wanted to realise my dream, to play for Real Madrid, and at the age of 25, that was the best time. For me, it was the best decision.”

Mbappe gives the impression of someone who is entirely comfortable within his own skin, not just capable of spectacular moments on a football pitch but also armed with a fierce intellect and formidable self-assurance. He speaks English with a slight American twang, as if symbolising his position as a global brand, and it is easy to understand why the Swiss sportswear company On has chosen him to front up their move into football.

“I had an amazing story with Nike,” says Mbappe. “I can only say thanks to Nike because they brought me in when I was eight years old. I realised many of my dreams with Nike, from a kid to a global superstar. But I wanted something different because I’d changed as a person, as a man, and I had different goals and visions. It’s new for them (On), coming into football, and I wanted to be part of it from the start and to build a legacy.”

Mbappe's relationship with Nike was one of the longest-standing in the football industry. This is the inside story of how On secured a deal

On will not just get one of the more marketable footballers in the industry, but also someone who is happy to position himself as a powerful voice in a divided world.