Ultimate Football Heroes: Mbappé

Matt Oldfield & Tom Oldfield's Ultimate Football Heroes: Mbappé is a true football story for 8 year olds about a boy from the edge of Paris who didn't just hope to play in a World Cup final. He expected to.

What happens

It kicks off in Moscow in 2018. France are in the World Cup final, Kylian is nineteen, and he's as cool as anything. Then it rewinds all the way back to Bondy, the Paris suburb where he grew up.

His dad coached at the local club and his mum was a star handball player. By two he was the team's little mascot, sitting in on team talks. At six he told his dad's video camera, very seriously, that he was going to play for France at a World Cup.

There are some lovely little stories along the way. He tore up and down so fast in one training match that the coach had to stop the game early. He turned the living room into a pitch (sofa at one end, table at the other) with the coach who was babysitting him, and they tidied it all up before Mum got home. His bedroom wall was plastered with so many Cristiano Ronaldo posters his brother called it a museum!

It isn't all goals and trophies, which is what makes it good. At Monaco one youth coach just didn't rate him, and it knocked his confidence. You see him frustrated and impatient. You also see how hard he worked, like sneaking out of his dorm at night with his phone torch to practise on his own.

It reads almost like a match commentary. Lots of chat, big "ZOOM!" moments and every goal spelled out with a very long "Goooaaal". It's super easy to get into.

There's a nice message running through it too. The three rules at his first club were respect each other, stay humble and love sport. His dad keeps reminding him of rule number two (quite often).

If you've got a reader who spends every spare minute with a ball at their feet, this will feel like it was written for them. And it might just get them thinking about what they want to be when they're older.

What to read next

If they finish it wanting more, Ultimate Football Heroes: Ronaldo is waiting. It tells the story of the boy from Madeira that Kylian had all over his bedroom wall.