THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR

Kylian Mbappé was crowned football's future king when he was just a teenager, but AIDAN MCLAUGHLIN meets the captain of Les Bleus at a turbulent time. He's weathered attacks on his French identity while serving as his nation's chief diplomat, endured criticism of his game while scoring goals by the hatful. He's on top of the world-and under unfathomable pressure. Everything is on the line at this summer's World Cup...

- 

France's emissary to the world is sitting in a hotel suite flanked by a battalion of representatives, assistants, and thick-necked security guards. The 27-year-old is part of the national iconography, right up there with Veuve Clicquot and workers' strikes, and this swirling support system around him choreographs his every step. Right before our interview starts, a PR rep produces a timer and clicks it on. Kylian Mbappé lights up. He proceeds to deliver a statesman's assessment of the looming World Cup, one which could deliver him into the football pantheon.

"There is nothing greater than representing one's country," he says. "You enter into the galaxy of international players." He's stateside to play a few exhibition matches for the French national team, but today is nominally a day off, and so he's sat here in a hotel suite with me, surrounded by his little army, wearing a Marine Serre sweater, track pants, Dior sneakers, a pavé diamond bracelet, and a Hublot watch. France is among the favorites this summer, and he's considering the challenge. "It's difficult to be in a situation like ours, where everyone expects us to perform miracles," he says.

"But miracles only happen on the pitch-we don't need to play the match before the match." He is relentlessly composed. As I push the interview toward thornier subjects-wincing a bit as I press France's golden boy on racism in football and anxieties about the political climate in the United States Mbappé remains stubbornly easygoing. Unflappable. He speaks French and Spanish and a good bit of English, but we're chatting in his native tongue.