“I have always had the Olympic flame”. In January 2024, Kylian Mbappé assured Elise Lucet, in Special Envoy on France 2, his desire to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The native of the capital saw it “an extraordinary opportunity” and even “a dream rather than an opportunity”. The star captain of the France team hoped to play Euro 2024 in Germany (June 14-July 14) before continuing with the Paris Olympics football tournament throughout France (July 24-August 9) .
Better still, the prodigy from Bondy would have participated in the legendary opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics (July 26), like one of his idols, Zinédine Zidane. He had been requested by Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, who had obtained the express agreement of “Zizou”. “I had also thought of Mbappé. He was interested, but it depended on whether he participated in the Games or not, because it had to make sense.”thus launched the céist to Parisian.
Mbappé did not impose anything on Real
Despite his declarations, Kylian Mbappé did not lobby Real Madrid to be released for the Paris Olympics. This would only have caused him to miss part of the pre-season preparation, before starting as he did with the European Super Cup on August 14. Casa Blanca refused its players to participate in the Games, but Mbappé arrived free of any contract after his departure from PSG and could easily have imposed his Olympic absence during the negotiation of his contract. Perhaps he would have received less money in return from the Merengues…
Thierry Henry, the coach of the France Espoirs team at the time, had thought for a while of bringing Mbappé together with Olivier Giroud and Antoine Griezmann. None of the French internationals reinforced the France Olympique team, Loïc Badé, Alexandre Lacazette and Jean-Philippe Mateta being the three players over 23 in the group. “Grizi” was not released by Atlético either, but Giroud, at the end of his contract at AC Milan, decided like Mbappé not to impose his participation in the Olympics when signing with Los Angeles FC .
