Kylian Mbappe, who scored a hat-trick in the 2022 World Cup final against Argentina, one of the greatest individual performances in the tournament’s history, has revealed he has never watched the match back and has no intention of doing so. “If I watch it, it can wake demons,” Mbappe said in an interview with Sorare, a fantasy football platform. “We lost. You have to move on.” The France captain said it was probably the best World Cup final ever played. “In terms of entertainment, in terms of the occasion, the scenario, I don’t think there has been anything better. It ended on penalties, which is the most brutal thing possible for a supporter or a player. It was going to be historic either way, whether Leo finally won his World Cup or we did the back-to-back.” The goal he says he has rewatched most in his career, though, is a relatively obscure one: a toe-poke against Lyon in the Coupe de France early in his career. “The ball was neither to the right nor the left. So I hit it with the pointu [toe-poke] and it went straight in. I loved that goal. I watched it many times.” Also Read | 2022-2026: Will the real France, full of attacking talent, step up on big stage Mbappe pointed to the Champions League last-16 first leg against Manchester City in 2017 as the moment his career shifted. “It was my first Champions League start, knockout stage, the competition everyone watches. There was a before and after that match. After that I became a regular starter, got called up for France, and everything moved fast.” At Monaco, he credited two players above all others. Bernardo Silva, he said, was the most gifted he had seen there. “Extraordinary technical quality, game intelligence, always one step ahead, and still raw at that point.” For what he learned, he pointed to Falcao. “He was the captain, the star, the reference point. But he was at a stage in his life where he wanted to pass things on, and I had my ears wide open. For a young striker, starting alongside someone like that, technically and as a human being, is everything.” On the Messi-Ronaldo debate, Mbappe pushed back on the idea that one represents talent and the other hard work. “That is something said by someone who has never put on boots to train every day. If you can tell me Ronaldo has no talent or Messi hasn’t worked, you have never trained a day in your life.”Story continues below this ad Having played alongside Messi at PSG and grown up idolising Ronaldo, he refused to separate them. “They are truly different. Everything opposes them, right foot, left foot, tall, short. That’s what made the rivalry so good.” On pressure, Mbappe said he needs it. “I need to feel the adrenaline, the tension. When you play for a big club, you don’t just have to win, you have to perform every time. There is no right to make mistakes. That stimulates me.” On retirement, Mbappe said the decision must come from the head, not the body. He described watching football with his younger brother and realising that players he had admired were seen as finished by the next generation simply because they stayed too long. “You have to stop when you no longer have the complete motivation to be part of the very best. That’s when you stop.” Asked which opponent he would most want to face at this World Cup, he named Ronaldo. “I think it will be his last. Or Neymar’s. After this, they won’t be able to play it anymore.” France open their World Cup campaign in the United States later this month.
Mbappe: ‘Say Ronaldo lacks talent or Messi didn’t work– you never trained’
