Five years ago, Kylian Mbappé almost quit the French national team.
France, a favorite in the Euro 2020 tournament, had just lost to Switzerland in the Round of 16. The French led for most of the game, only for the Swiss to score two late goals and force a penalty shootout. Mbappé ended up taking the deciding shot. The kick was strong, but the keeper reacted swiftly to bat it away.
The loss was catastrophic. ESPN called it a “huge failure.” The cover of Le Parisien, a French newspaper, the next day read “Disillusionment.” On L’Equipe: “Devastated.”
For Mbappé, just 22 years old at the time, this national letdown led to a wave of racist abuse on social media. One tweet went viral: A user wrote, “This dirty n***er deserves to receive a hundred lashes and be sold in Libya.” That Mbappé was born in Paris and had been an instrumental part of France’s World Cup win just a few years prior did not seem to matter.
“I cannot play for people who think I’m a monkey. I’m not gonna play,” Mbappé told the French Football Federation (FFF) President Noël Le Graët at the time.
