“I have always followed my lucky star”

Sitting behind a table in a secure space on the top floor of a Fnac store in Paris, Kylian Mbappé, purple sweatshirt, black cap, has a smile and a little note for everyone. “Hello, how are you? What’s your name?”, he says to Liam. At 11, the little boy, PSG cap screwed on his head, still struggles to achieve. “It gives me great pleasure to see him, he confides. He’s a great soccer player. He said hello to me and even that made me feel good. It was a moment that I will never forget in my life. “

Each in turn, the 150 people present – registered in advance to participate in the event – come forward with their copy of the comic strip. My name is kylian (Km Editions) in the hands to be signed. They also leave with a photo on their phone. “Completely fan, my heart goes ‘boom boom’!”, exclaims Elsa, to the angels. “I’m a big fan of PSG and Kylian obviously, she smiles. He’s a good role model for young people, for football, for everything. He is part of associations … We saw him outside Fnac, all the young people are all running saying ‘it’s Kylian’, they are between 6 and 10 years old and they are is their idol! “

Thanks to the drawings of Faro, the everyday caricaturist The team, the striker recounts his journey, from Bondy to his 20 years. The graphic novel, “it’s more fun”, judge Kylian Mbappé. “I think kids like it when it’s illustrated, that it fits them, they can relate to that kind of thing. Afterwards, adults can read too, but the idea was to make it really accessible to everyone. “

“Whether the children like it is most important.”

Kylian Mbappé

to franceinfo

It was also an opportunity for the French striker to send messages to young readers: “You always have to follow your dreams and believe in your dreams, it’s important, no one is going to believe for you.” The player admits it: it’s not just the good times in this book. “A course is never smooth, but I always followed ‘my lucky star’ and I always believed in what I was doing. It was the most important thing for me.”

A moment of his life remains forever engraved, and illustrated today: his meeting with Zidane. “I’m 14 when he invites me to spend time in Madrid, remembers Kylian Mbappé. For a 14-year-old child, it’s a dream, it’s something fantastic because Zidane was, and still is, the idol of a whole youth, of a whole country. When he welcomes you like that to Madrid, you are 14 years old, you are nobody, you are living the best times of your life. “

“I had the banana all week! I went from Bondy to Zidane who invited me in his car!”

Kylian Mbappé

to franceinfo

The realization of the graphic novel took two and a half years, in close collaboration with the designer Faro. “We talked a lot, I wanted to let him do his job because he’s really an expert”, he explains, acknowledging that “the rendering is really great.”

His parents are also very present in the book. Kylian MBappé admits it, “I was not an easy child, but I think that all children make parents drool over it. I was no different on that point. It is true that I made them live with all the colors. ! “ From now on, it is the defenders of the whole world to whom he makes drool.