Mbappé reveals he nearly retired from the France squad 🇫🇷

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OneFootball

·2 avril 2026

Mbappé reveals he nearly retired from the France squad 🇫🇷

Kylian Mbappé revealed that he almost retired from the French national team five years ago, after their elimination from the Euro held in 2021.

France were knocked out in the round of 16 by Switzerland in a penalty shootout in which the Real Madrid star was the only player to miss his spot kick.

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Mbappé said he sought out the then-president of the French Football Federation, Noël Le Graët, to tell him he no longer wanted to represent the country.

The statement was made in an interview on a podcast hosted by his club and national-team teammate, Aurélien Tchouaméni,

I said I didn’t want to come back. I had a meeting with Noël Le Graët. I told him: ‘I’m not going to play again.’ I thought to myself: ‘I’m playing for people who think I’m a monkey if I don’t score goals. I can’t play for people like that.’ That’s why I reached that point. I said: ‘I don’t want to play anymore, I’m going back to Paris, I have no problem there.’ Noël Le Graët told me: ‘Do you think you’re going to walk out of the office like that and I’m going to say yes?’ He told me to forget about it

Kylian Mbappé

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The forward dropped the idea and wore the France shirt again shortly after the elimination against Switzerland.

However, he stressed that the episode of racism "changed his relationship" with the French national team.

"When I joined the national team, I soon won the World Cup, I was a national hero. I thought to myself: ‘Ah, France is amazing!’ And then you get hit with something like that. It was hard," Mbappé said.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.

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