Funnily enough for such a ridiculously well-paid player, Kylian Mbappe has long felt undervalued, particularly in his native France, yet he’s always insisted that he never had an issue with compatriots taking his consistently world-class performances for granted.
“I don’t blame them,” he told France Football in July of last year. “They saw me grow up, they see me all the time, at Paris Saint-Germain every weekend or in the national team. And I’ve been scoring a lot for years. So, for people, it becomes normal.
“But I never complained that my performances were trivialised. I myself trivialised what [Lionel] Messi was doing, what Cristiano Ronaldo was doing, what the great players were doing. We are in a consumer society, where ‘It’s good, but do it again.’
“And the fact that I’m right next door, in Paris… I think playing at PSG doesn’t help much because it’s a divisive team, a divisive club. So, of course it attracts gossip, but it doesn’t bother me because I know what I’m doing and how I do it.”
The irony, of course, is that Mbappe has come to personify PSG’s divisiveness, a product of the culture of entitlement that pervades Parc des Princes, an increasingly polarising player that many feel creates as many problems as he solves.
Indeed, as Mbappe closes in on a long-mooted move to Real Madrid after what looks like being yet another disappointing Champions League exit, it feels fair to ask whether he proved more trouble than he was worth during his seven years at the Parc des Princes?
Source Goal.com
