Kylian Mbappe controls the ball against Ivory Coast ahead of the 2026 World Cup . I've been covering Kylian and his career since he was like 11 or 12 years old. I still remember the first time one of my friends in Paris said, “Listen, we have this kid who is destroying everything in Paris at grassroots level, we should go and watch.” Paris is big, but it's also quite a small football world where everybody knows each other, especially at grassroots level when you're that age.