After winning the 2018 World Cup, France was logically the big favorite to win this Euro 2020, which was finally contested in 2021 due to covid-19. But the Blues disappointed, since they took the door in the round of 16 against Switzerland, losing on penalties, with a last attempt missed by Kylian Mbappé.
Which earned him strong insults, sometimes marked by racism, to the man who was still a Paris Saint-Germain player at the time. To the point where, as he later confided, he seriously considered retiring internationally, at the age of only 22. In the show The Bridge on Youtubehe returned to these complicated moments in more detail.
Mbappé experienced this moment very badly
“I started to be insulted like a monkey… For me, the selection was right up there, and you put people right up there who put you right down if you don’t score. And that changed my relationship with the selection. You shouldn’t put all the eggs in one basket, they take the basket and throw it straight at you. It was all very brutal for me. I went on vacation, I was a living dead. I fell from a height. I very quickly won in the selection, I was the national hero very quickly”he first said, highlighting this contrast between his first successful steps at the 2018 World Cup and the brutality of the failure at the Euro.
“You take it in the face, it’s hard. I made an appointment with Le Graet and told him I wouldn’t play again. I said to myself ‘I’m playing for people who, if I don’t score, will think I’m a monkey’. I said to myself “I can’t play for people like that”. I said “I’m going back to Paris, I have no problems there”. He (Le Graet, Editor’s note) said to me “do you think you’re going to leave the office like that? Forget it”explained the Real Madrid star, who finally returned his choice. To the delight of French fans, since a year and a half later, he took the Blues to the 2022 World Cup.
