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Of course he's the dictator, he's fantastic.

Kylian Mbappe may be France’s dictator – but he’s more than earned it

Sam Cooper •
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This has been a World Cup of superstars.

The top five goalscorers are all household names. Two of them are Ballon d’Or winners, two more of them have a chance to win it this year. There has been no surprise name anywhere near the Golden Boot race.

And yet, amongst all the superstars, it may be time to accept that Kylian Mbappe is above them all.

France are the only team at this tournament that have looked consistently good. Sure, others have good matches or good moments, but the French have not had a bad game. They’ve conceded two goals all tournament, none since the knockouts began, and no team has scored more than the 16 goals France has.

At the centre of the possible three-time consecutive finalists is Mbappe.

Perhaps not helped by being associated with the mess of Real Madrid last season, Mbappe’s reputation as a ‘dictator’ has grown in recent months, and a seating plan of the French’s meals by Le Parisien suggests it is not too far from the truth

Sitting around a very large table, the man at the head of it is Mbappe. Because of course he is.

Mbappe may well be the dictator of France but can anyone say he has not earned the title? He has been France’s superstar for eight years now. Win one more match and he will appear in his third final, equalling the record set by Cafu, Lothar Matthaus, Ronaldo and Pierre Littbarski.

As the years have gone on, he has taken more responsibility for his national team. He’s the captain, he takes penalties and in the big moments, he steps up.

In five of France’s six games this tournament, he has scored a result-changing goal. He’s tied with Messi for top goalscorer this summer, he trails the Argentine by one in the all-time ranking despite playing 11 games fewer.

He again demonstrated how decisive he can be against Morocco. Having missed a penalty, his 15th of 80 attempts, he broke the deadlock with a simply excellent finish.

If you pause the match as Mbappe picks up the ball, you can see he is in the centre of a square of Moroccan players, but the ball never moves more than a couple of inches away from him.

One touch with the left to control it, another with the right to move it forward and then a curled effort that had precisely the right amount of bend to get round the defender but creep back in at the far post.

It’s a moment of world-class skill to decide a game for France, something he has done time and time again.

If he continues on that trajectory, Mbappe will easily go down as the greatest World Cup player ever and is already in the conversation as the best Frenchman to ever play the game.

So does anyone really care if he is the dictator of the team? No one can argue that he’s not deserved it.

By Sam Cooper

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