PSG superstar Kylian Mbappe, the European career effectively started 10 years ago when a boy from a poor Paris suburb went to London to train with Chelsea.
“When I was 11 years old, I got to go to London for a few days to train with Chelsea’s youth team,” the France international wrote in his essay for The Players’ Tribune.
“I was so excited and shocked that I didn’t even want to tell my friends from the neighbourhood where I was going. When I came back home, my friends saw me and said, ‘Kylian, where were you last week?’
“I said, ‘I was in London with Chelsea.’ They said, ‘Pfff, no it’s impossible.’ I said, ‘No, I swear, I even met Drogba.’
“They said, ‘Pfff, you’re lying. Drogba doesn’t meet kids from Bondy. It is not possible!’
“I didn’t have a phone back then, so I asked my dad to give me his, and I showed them the pictures we took. That’s when they finally believed me.”
Mbappe played in just one game with the Blues’ youth teams, and his Stamford Bridge spell lasted about a week.
A lot has changed since then: the kid from Bondy has become one of the most expensive players in the game’s history and won the World Cup in 2018.
Do you think there’s a chance we could ever see Mbappe in the blue shirt?