Kylian Mbappé's short memoir published with The Players' Tribune will have many Real Madrid fans hoping his reunion with Zinedine Zidane is inevitable.
Kylian Mbappé has published a letter on The Players' Tribune, in which the PSG superstar recalled training with Real Madrid as a youngster and his excitement on meeting his idol, Zinedine Zidane.
“It was a shock, because they actually told my father, ‘Zidane would like to see your son.’ At the time, Zizou was the sporting director. Of course, I was over the moon. I was desperate to go,” writes the 21-year-old World Cup winner.
Having decided not to tell anybody about the trip, including his closest friends, the nervous teenager travelled to Madrid. He took the short journey directly from the airport to Real’s training base in Valdebebas in the north of the city. And it was on his arrival at Real Madrid City that he encountered hero Zidane – a moment, he says, he will never forget.
“Zidane met us in the parking lot by his car, and it was a really nice car, of course. We said hello, and then he offered to drive me over to the field for training. He was pointing at the front seat, like, ‘Go on, get in’,” he recalls.
“But I just froze and I asked, 'Should I take off my shoes?' Hahaha! I don’t know why I said that. But it was Zizou’s car! He thought that was really funny. He said, ‘Of course not, come on, get in.’
“He drove me to the training pitch, and I was just thinking to myself, I am in Zizou’s car. I am Kylian from Bondy. This is not real. I must still be sleeping on the airplane. Sometimes, even when you are really living something, it feels like a dream. It was the same feeling at the World Cup in Russia.