Kylian Mbappé sat on The Bridge alongside Achraf Hakimi, Choameni and comedian Malik Bentalha and spoke at length without his usual press conference shield. He himself explained it this way. “I’m tired of interviews. Journalists are there to make you say things you don’t want to say, and you don’t want to say things they want you to say. It’s like a boxing match.”
He also did so when talking about his defense, one of the most common criticisms he has received since arriving at Madrid. “I’m a little less of a defensive player than some of the other players, so that can be a problem sometimes,” he said. “Yes, I’m doing less, but I realized that when I do it, it has a big impact on the team. At Madrid, when I do something, you see everyone else doing it too.” He added: “They criticize me for that, but I don’t mind because it’s constructive criticism.”
Gvardior played a part, and the celebrations spread all over the world. “It started in the first leg, on the counter-attack. He tackled me and yelled ‘Yay!'” I’ll never forget it, he said. And at the 2022 World Cup, he and Hakimi experienced a strange situation. “We played Football Manager together and called each other every day. The further we went, the more we realized we could turn to each other. He said to me, ‘We’re making progress,’ and I said, ‘So are we.’ But in the semi-finals, we weren’t making any more progress. We kept talking, but there was an ‘umm’ vibe in the air.”
The most comforting moment was about his driver’s license, where he received an “A” for beginner (French equivalent of the Spanish “L”). Mbappé wanted to get it in Paris, but it was too complicated. In Madrid, they found a way to do it anonymously, in a kind of private session. Choameni was quick to ironically point out the reason for the pass: “He paid for it. Because he paid for it.” To make matters worse, the examiner was an Atlético fan. “If you drive well, you need to be recognized,” Mbappe said.
He also admitted that he failed to park his Mini Cooper one day while being photographed. “I get a little nervous when I’m being filmed,” he says. To make matters worse, when he left the hotel, there were 1,000 people there, cars blocking his exit, and everyone filming himself trying to recognize him. He wore a hat to hide his emotions.
