Through the security barriers, past all the pristine pitches and neatly kept borders, the entrance to Real Madrid's training ground is dominated by murals of their unrivalled European Cup collection. Fifteen, in total, from Paris in 1956 to London in 2024.

Then the door opens. Kylian Mbappe walks in — black T-shirt, grey pleated trousers billowing over his shoes — and the energy changes immediately. A smile, a handshake. “Pleasure to meet you,” he says. “Did you have a nice flight?”

He is, in many people’s eyes, the best footballer on the planet, a goalscorer extraordinaire with a level of fame that, as he will try to explain, is almost incomprehensible.

But it doesn’t take long in Mbappe’s company to be reminded that, at the heart of everything, he is still a football romantic, playing for the team he idolised as a boy and living out his childhood dream.

He takes his seat beneath the ‘Wall of Fame’ and looks up at the icons all around him. Cristiano Ronaldo is holding up five fingers to signify his personal haul of Champions League wins. There’s a Hugo Sanchez bicycle kick, a Pepe fist-pump, a Jose Mourinho knee-slide. Plus many others. “History,” Mbappe announces. “Famous history.”

And so we start talking about his own history-making, his fame, the goals, his back-to-back Golden Boots in the World Cup and how it feels, aged 27, to be the leading all-time scorer in the biggest sporting competition of them all.

We will talk about why he has just ended a near 20-year association with Nike, his chances of winning the Ballon d’Or next month and why he fully intends to keep speaking up for what he sees as good over bad.

He will also take us into a parallel world in which he confirms that, yes, his career could have taken a different path in 2017 with a move to Liverpool, at the age of 18. Was it close? Well, close enough that his mum, Fayza Lamari, doubling up as his agent, had more than one reconnaissance trip to Merseyside and recommended that he made the move to Anfield. “She fell in love with it,” her son explains.

Kylian Mbappe on how close he came to Liverpool move

We will even discuss his ideal guests for a fantasy five-a-side dinner party, why he won’t be cooking, his music tastes and the times, away from football, when he wishes he could be a “little bit of a ghost in my life”, away from the constant scrutiny.

First, though, maybe we can learn a bit more about Mbappe by understanding why he is able to answer these questions in fluent English. “I always wanted to speak different languages,” he explains. “It’s fun to learn a new culture. You can talk with everybody around the world and be independent. You don’t need to depend on someone translating.”

He now speaks excellent Spanish, too, as well as picking up some Portuguese and Italian. But it wasn’t at school that he dedicated himself to being multilingual. That came later, as he became conscious of its benefits if, as he fully intended, he was to conquer the world. “After school, I didn’t speak (other languages) at all,” he says. “I was 17, 18. I’m not scared to make mistakes.”

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.

We saw that last week when Mbappe and two of his Madrid team-mates, Ibrahima Konate and Vinicius Junior, signalled their reluctance to wear T-shirts in support of Ceuta – the Spanish territory in northern Africa that has been battling a migration crisis from neighbouring Morocco — in case it looked like he was taking a position against immigration.

There was another example during the World Cup when he publicly condemned a “despicable” Paraguayan senator for the “hatred and racism” in her comments after the two nations had played one another in the round of 16.

“Everybody has their own values and own mentality,” Mbappe reflects. “Me… I’m a guy who is not scared to talk. When I believe I’m in the right direction and it’s the right thing to do, I go (out there). Of course, I think beforehand about how I say it, and the construction of what I’m going to say, but I want to go. I have no problem with that. It’s the story of my career and the story of my life. It’s me. And I will not try to be someone else because it’s too difficult. I have no time to be someone else.”

Speaking out, as Mbappe can testify, can lead to a backlash. Politicians debate him. The criticism can be fierce. Either way, Mbappe says he will not be silenced.

“You have to accept when you say something that there are people who agree and people who disagree. If you want everybody to love you, stay at home — your family loves you. If you don’t, there are people who are going to say, ‘I don’t like this guy’. And that's OK.

“My goal when I go out of my house is not to say, ‘Oh, today I hope everybody is going to love me’. Because it’s not true. I want to fulfil my values, to take pleasure in what I’m doing and be a respectful man. I can accept criticism and the opinions of people.

“In football, and also in life, you have to understand where you are, and why. When you understand everything, it’s easier to understand some attitudes and reactions. I’m chilled. I don’t take things too personally, positive or negative. So it’s pretty easy to fight against this rhythm of almost constant pressure.

“I go home, I close my door, I close the window (laughs). And nothing comes in. I have people around me who love football and people who don’t care about football. So it’s the perfect mix for me to be a normal person.”

But what is normal life for someone with his fame? Is there a place in the world, anywhere, that he would not be recognised? He can laugh again. “If you have a place, give me the name! I would love to go there.”

Does he ever go anywhere in disguise?

More laughter. “I try many things. But for the moment, I didn’t find (a way) to go somewhere and nobody recognises me. I’d have to change many things. The way I talk, the way I walk, the way I wear things. It’s a long journey.

“Sometimes it is tough because, of course, you cannot reject the support and love that people give you. But you are a human being and just a normal guy who has feelings. I want to protect my people — myself, my family, my friends, my girlfriend, everybody around me. I don’t want to expose them too much.

"I know for people it’s not easy to understand. I doubt myself a lot about this life because it’s the life that I choose. But people have to understand that sometimes you just want to have some moments that are yours. Because when you are a famous person, people know many, many things about your life and you don’t have your moments.”

This is why he makes his “ghost” comment about wanting to occasionally disappear from public view. “There are ups and downs and sometimes you can say, ‘OK, it’s a little bit too much’," he explains. "It helps when you have strong people around you. But I also try to protect (those people) because being in this world is my decision. It’s my responsibility.”

To be clear, these are not the words of someone who has been worn down by fame. On the contrary, he talks enthusiastically about living in Madrid, the challenges of playing for a club with such unflinching expectations, and life in general. It is, he says, “good pressure”. He is happy. Kylian Mbappe loves being Kylian Mbappe.

He also says, more than once, that he just loves football. His eyes light up when he remembers Pele giving him a signed shirt (“an iconic moment”) and he talks boyishly about some of the others in his collection. “Some of the best players in the history of football,” he says. “I still have this passion. The jerseys are iconic. Messi, Cristiano, Neymar, (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic — everybody!”

His burning ambition is to win another World Cup because “there is no bigger achievement”. He fell in love with the tournament, aged seven, watching France reach the 2006 final. “You’re a kid and you say, ‘Yeah I want to be there one day, I want to play this type of game, the adrenaline, the atmosphere.’”

First things first, however. His latest Golden Boot will be presented when he reports for international duty this week for his country's Nations League games against Turkey, Belgium and Italy.

“It’s such a pleasure to do it twice, back to back,” he says, reflecting on the summer. “I don’t know if that has ever happened in the history of the game — it’s completely crazy. It’s not something I think about before a competition — I’m conditioned only to win the tournament — but afterwards, of course, when everybody stops you in the street to talk about it, you realise you did something great.”

Can he also do something great with Madrid? After two years without a major trophy, he is acutely aware that “everybody expects something from us”. He and his team-mates are “hungry”, he says, and “can’t wait to fight for every title”. He remains hopeful (though we are speaking before their 2-1 defeat by Atletico Madrid on Sunday) and his first impressions of Mourinho have been positive.

“Way before he arrived here, I was really curious about him because he’s been one of the main characters in world football in the last 20 to 25 years. When a guy like this arrives at your club, you can’t wait to see from close up what greatness means. I think you (being from England) have good memories of him making history there. And, for us, it’s such a privilege to have him back.”

As for his fantasy dinner party, who are the five people, from any walk of life, to get an invitation? Michael Jordan is first on the guest list because “he’s inspiring … I met him one time and I would like to meet him more to talk about his career.”

Ronaldo is next because “he used to be my idol, now he’s my friend, and I love to spend time with him … he gives me advice, he supports me and knows I will always support him.”

If Mbappe is in charge of the music, his choice would be French rap (though he also name-checks two British artists, Central Cee and Dave). What would he cook? “I don’t cook,” he says, apologetically. “If I cook, everybody goes home fast. Maybe we can order something?”

And the other guests? “Serena Williams,” he eventually decides. “Because I want to be inspired by people and she’s an athlete I love. Maybe Rihanna next. I like Rihanna! And the last person (blows out cheeks), I don’t know … maybe you?”

What can you do in that position other than accept?

We have been speaking for the best part of an hour and it is almost time to wrap everything up. Before heading home, however, something has caught Mbappe's eye.

The photographs on the wall show Madrid’s previous Ballon d’Or winners. Eight of them: Alfredo Di Stefano, Raymond Kopa, Luis Figo, the Brazilian Ronaldo, Fabio Cannavaro, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema and, of course, one other.

Mbappe rises from his chair to point out Cristiano Ronaldo — bow tie, big smile, clutching the golden trophy that he won five times — and it hasn't escaped his attention that the wall hasn’t been updated for a couple of years.

His smile is on full beam. “Who knows? Maybe my picture will be there soon. It’s time, it’s time! Maybe this year is a good year for that.”