Ninja Turtle, Emmanuel Macron, LeBron James… For Kylian Mbappé’s broken nose, Internet users have no shortage of mask ideas

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The star striker of the France team broke his nose on Monday evening during the Blues’ first match against Austria. He should play the rest of the competition with a protective mask and surveyed Internet users on the social network X.

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French striker Kylian Mbappé suffered a broken nose during the France-Austria match at Euro 2024, on June 17, 2024 in Düsseldorf (Germany). (EMIN SANSAR / ANADOLU / AFP)

Cyrano de Bergerac would surely not have liked to be in Kylian Mbappé’s place. Edmond Rostand’s hero hated being mentioned about his nose, which was particularly imposing, but on Tuesday June 18, the Blues captain’s appendix occupied a large part of the news. Because he did not resist a shock with the shoulder of Austrian defender Kevin Danso during the victory of the Blues for their entry into the Euro, Monday evening. The images of Kylian Mbappé, lying on the lawn, his face bleeding, left little doubt at the time of the diagnosis: broken nose.

Didier Deschamps could thus be deprived of his captain and star striker for at least a few days, even if the player’s entourage assures that he will be “apt” for the match against the Netherlands on Friday. However, he will have to protect his nose with a special mask to be able to consider “a resumption of competition”, the French Football Federation (FFF) said on Tuesday. If it is from the outset a big blow for the number 10 of the Blues, he has not lost his sense of humor.

From Monday evening, a few hours after his injury and once the diagnosis was known, he asked on the social network “mask ideas”. It didn’t take long for the suggestions to flood in, by the thousands, and franceinfo sorted through the most popular responses.

A Ninja Turtles mask

Very quickly, images reappeared on the social network. We see a younger Kylian Mbappé, in the PSG locker room, opening a package from a luxury brand. He unwraps a Ninja Turtle mask, named after the cartoon in which four turtles (Leonardo, Donatello, Raffaello and Michelangelo) play masked vigilantes while living in the sewers and eating pizza. Offered by his teammate and captain at the time in Paris, the Brazilian Thiago Silva, this luxury mask was a joke for the man nicknamed “Donatello”, due to a resemblance to one of the four vigilantes.

Other Internet users even posted a photo of the player posing with said mask on his face, still in the Parisian locker room that same evening.

However, it is quite unlikely that Kylian Mbappé will be able to set foot on the Euro pitches with this mask, although it is popular with a very large number of Internet users.

A black mask like LeBron James or Victor Osimhen

Kylian Mbappé is not going to be the first athlete, or even the first footballer, to have to wear a mask to protect his face after an injury. Before him, the Nigerian striker from Naples, Victor Osimhen, tried it and completely adopted it. This proposal also appeared numerous times in the responses given to the Blues striker. The Napoli striker has worn one since an injury in November 2021. Since then, he has never taken it off and that has not stopped him from becoming one of the best center forwards in the world. “The side of the mask that protects my wound is super hard. If someone hits it, it’s them who hurts. Honestly, I’m not afraid anymore”explained Victor Osimhen to France Football in April 2023.

Kylian Mbappé’s followers also pointed him towards American basketball and NBA superstar LeBron James, who wore a black mask during a few meetings in March 2014, while he was playing for the Miami Heat. “It’s to go with the jersey. I knew we were going to wear the retro jerseys [noirs]. I was able to find a carbon fiber mask that is actually much lighter than the one I wore in training. It arrived last minute, but I gave it a try.”he explained to sports media ESPN.

This mask gave him a look “threatening”, according to his coach at the time, Erik Spoelstra, reports the site USA Basketball. “A man of taste like LeBron must always be ahead of fashion, declared his teammate Shane Battier. I found that his mask went on very well. To say that it will inspire other players to break their noses, I don’t think so. Only LeBron can make a broken nose cool.”

A mask with a more political scope

Other proposals have slipped towards a more political terrain and echo the comments of the captain of the Blues at a press conference on the eve of the match against Austria. Asked about the situation in France a few weeks before early legislative elections, Kylian Mbappé took a position and declared that he was “against extremes, ideas that divide” , without specifying which political groups he was targeting. He was less explicit than his teammate Marcus Thuram, who called on Saturday to “fight so that the RN does not pass”.

The words of the future Real Madrid player pushed certain Internet users, including criminal lawyer Yassine Bouzrou, to offer him a mask bearing the image of Emmanuel Macron, to whom the French captain is reputed to be close, to the point of having dinner at the Elysium.

A cinema mask

The player could also find happiness in the seventh art, as some Internet users have suggested. The most obvious being that worn by the character played by Jim Carrey in The Mask, which gives him a totally eccentric personality.

Another leans more towards the one worn by Russell Crowe, general of the fallen Roman army who became a gladiator in Gladiator. With this impressive helmet, “no more risk”he writes.

More comical, the journalist Antoine Llorca challenges Kylian Mbappé to play with the mask of Fantomas, the glorious villain of French cinema played by Jean Marais, who constantly escapes Commissioner Juve, played by Louis de Funès, in the eponymous trilogy.

Finally, another Internet user, more teasing, evokes the mask worn by one of the most iconic villains of cinema, Hannibal Lecter, in Thesilenceofthelambs.

What proposal will Kylian Mbappé choose (or not)? Answer perhaps from Friday evening, or more surely for the third and final group match of the French team during this European Championship, Tuesday June 25 against Poland.


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