(Nice) The captain of the French team Kylian Mbappé broke the silence in the selection by appearing on Friday for the first time at a press conference since June 15, but did not wish to answer questions concerning his situation and his future at PSG.
“I announced from my first speech as captain that I was not going to come to all the press conferences, due to the role of Antoine Griezmann, his experience. I am not his supervisor. I did the first three “confs”, Antoine did the next three and I said that we were going to leave the door open to other leaders, Mike Maignan, the starting goalkeeper, or Aurélien Tchouameni,” declared from the outset Mbappé to explain his long media silence in the French team, which intervened just after the tensions with the management of PSG.
“There are several leaders, it’s a desire to share leadership, today it’s up to me to come back,” he added, on the eve of the penultimate qualifying match at the Euro-2024 against Gibraltar.
The 2018 world champion was excluded from PSG’s professional group for several weeks during the summer break after announcing his intention not to activate a clause allowing him to extend his contract by one year, until 2025.
He was then reinstated to the first team after the first day of Ligue 1.
Asked precisely about his contractual situation at PSG, while he will be free in June 2024, the star of the Blues (24 years old) did not want to expand on the question.
“This is absolutely not the news of the France team, I came here as captain of the France team and I would like to remain so for the days to come. If this question is important to you, you have to come to the PSG Campus, you ask me and I will answer it if I have to come to a press conference. Normal, right? Country first,” he replied.
“It’s not something that weighs on me, on the pitch I don’t think about that, I just think about playing, winning titles, I’ve always done it like that, I’ve always had a lot of things to bear outside of it and it didn’t stop me from achieving what I achieved,” he continued.
Mbappé also returned to the dig from Luis Enrique, the PSG coach, who felt that he had not had a good match despite his hat-trick in Reims on Saturday in Ligue 1.
“You have to ask him why this timing, but I took it very well. He’s a great coach, he has a lot to bring me and teach me, I’m at a level in my career where I want to broaden my palette, become a complete player,” said the striker. .
“Since the first day we met, I told him that he would have no problem with me, that my only wish was to play football, progress and win titles. I worked very well with the coaches I had, with the coach, with Pochettino, with Tuchel, coaches who, in quotes, spoke to me very, very badly,” underlined the third of the last Ballon d’Or. .
“That didn’t stop me from playing very well, performing very well and having a very good relationship with them. I don’t necessarily need the coach to say I’m the best in the world for me to play well,” he explained.