FRANCE-PORTUGAL: MBAPPÉ’S NICE GESTURE BY INVITING A FORMER OM PLAYER WHO HELPED HIM SEE RONALDO WHEN HE WAS 10 YEARS OLD
Already the best story of these quarter-finals? Kylian Mbappé invited Jean-Charles de Bono, former OM player, to come and watch the Euro 2024 quarter-final between France and Portugal . The reason for this surprise invitation goes back to 2009, when the defensive midfielder allowed the captain of the Blues to meet his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The story goes back to December 8, 2009, when Olympique de Marseille faced Real Madrid in the Champions League, where the locals lost 3-1 at the Vélodrome. In the stands, Kylian Mbappé is with his mother, both of whom came from the Paris region, to see Cristiano Ronaldo. Except that the Portuguese number 7 does not go to see him and the young striker bursts into tears.
Mbappé wanted to find “the man with the shaved head”
Feeling sorry for the young boy, Jean-Charles de Bono, then a consultant for OMTV, decided to take him with him to the mixed zone, to make him meet his idol. The former player only discovered during a phone call made on Tuesday evening that the little boy crying in the stands was none other than Kylian Mbappé.
According to the story given by FC Marseille , the French star would have done everything to find “the man with the shaved head”, when he learned that France was facing Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal, in order to thank him for this nice gesture. Kylian Mbappé’s mother, Fayza Lamari, therefore contacted Jean-Charles de Bono a few minutes later, to explain to him that her son wanted to invite him to the match against his idol.
“I thought it was a hoax”
He would like the OM player to witness it in order to thank him personally for what he had done fifteen years earlier. “It’s an incredible move,” De Bono told the Marseille media. “I thought it was a hoax at first. It’s completely crazy that he could remember that, and to have done research to find me.”
“Humanly, I find it extraordinary,” he says. “I didn’t remember this story at all. It was when I was working for OMTV with Pape Diouf. It really shows that beyond his immense football talent, he also has a big heart.” Jean-Charles de Bono will therefore take the plane on Friday to the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg to attend the quarter-final between France and Portugal.