How did France become a football factory? A Parisian suburb has 14 schools and 100 regered football clubs

And it was design that Kylian played football.
Mbappe grew up in a shoebox-sized apartment of a tower block in the run-down banlieue where one-third of the population lives below the poverty line, the region of France where there’s most crimes committed per capita, as per Der Spiegel. The Parisian suburb has 14 schools. But there are 100 regered football clubs. Wilfried knew football would be a more valuable form of education for his son.
A coach himself, Wilfried would impart early lessons to Kylian. It started on the streets before he was signed the club where his father worked – AS Bondy, the first stop on Mbappe’s whirlwind journey to Monaco, PSG, and then top of the world.Subscriber Only StoriesPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium

Mbappe’s story is similar to most players who grow up in Parisian suburbs, where France’s footballers are unearthed. Author Tim Wigmore, in his book ‘The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made’, estimated that 60 players who played in the five World Cups from 2002 to 2018 were born in the suburbs of Paris, more than any other city in the world.
But Mbappe, the once-in-a-generation talent who is also France’s national treasure, stands out. At 23, he is on the cusp of becoming the youngest player to win two World Cups since Pele, who achieved that feat at the age of 21. He’s the heartbeat of the French side that will take on Messi’s Argentina in Sunday’s World Cup final.
Mbappe, 13, undergoes an effort test at France football academy in Clairefontaine in March 2012. (Magali Delporte/Yevine)
It will be France’s fourth final in the last seven editions. They’ve won the championship twice, in 1998 and 2018. No country comes close to matching this record. And so, it begs a question: what makes France so good? Not just as the most successful team in international football in the last three decades but also for being the best and the biggest, football factory.
The reigning world champions, after all, are also the biggest exporters of talent at this World Cup, with 37 players spread out across nine countries, excluding France. Once again, a majority of them are boys from the banlieues.

Ecosystem and economics
The answer lies in the economics and ecosystem of French football.
In his piece for ESPN five years ago, journal and author Simon Kuper declared that the suburbs of Paris produce ‘more talent than Asia, Africa and North America combined.’ The reasons, he argued, were two-fold: one, the fathers (most of them immigrants) devoting their lives to turning their kids into multi-millionaire players; and two, the ecosystem – where players begin on the streets, benefit from the hyper-local club culture and are turned into finished products at the national training centre.
German newspaper Der Spiegel’s recent report contrasted the two country’s mindsets towards football: the players in the German national team, it noted, came ‘almost exclusively from middle-class backgrounds’; those in France, on the other hand, were mostly from what the French call ‘quartiers populaires’ or the working-class settlements.
“The French like watching soccer. Nevertheless, parents from the middle and upper classes don’t sign their children up to play. People are afraid their children will be treated poorly. Higher-income families prefer to choose sports for their children like swimming. Or sports they believe convey higher values, like judo, for example,” the Spiegel quoted sociolog Julien Bertrand as saying.

The prospect of life-changing deals in the multi-million dollar industry of football is the biggest attraction for those growing up in rough neighbourhoods. Their dreams and ambitions are backed a deep-rooted culture.
Like Mbappe’s growing up years in Bondy, Paul Pogba too was surrounded football. Roissy, the suburb where he lived, had just two schools. But there were 73 football clubs in its periphery. And like Mbappe, Pogba, the hero of France’s 2018 campaign who is absent in Qatar due to an injury, too began playing on the streets of his rough neighbourhood before he dazzled the world with his skills on lush fields inside futuric stadiums.
The names and details might change but the paths of the players remain the same: start to the streets, where they learn their kicks and tricks; progress to the local club, where their skills are honed; get hand-picked and sent to the 17th-Century castle in Clairefontaine, from where hundreds go on to play for professional clubs, while the chosen few represent Les Bleus.
It has its imperfections and pitfalls – players from the projects often put all eggs in one basket and after the 2018 World Cup triumph, Pogba’s childhood coach Mamadou Diouf was sceptical about whether the perception of those living in the ghettos in and around France’s capital would change.
The jury may be out on that. But in Mbappe’s hometown Bondy, the writing’s on the wall. ‘Ville des possible’, screams a banner, with a life-size portrait of its famous son. ‘City of possibilities’.
An immigrant’s son who is a product of the system is a testimony to that.