5 min readAug 31, 2026 09:50 AM IST First published on: Aug 31, 2026 at 09:50 AM ISTSix years ago, Kylian Mbappe reposted on Rayan Cherki with a smiley and caption: “Don’t talk to him about his age too much!” Cherki was only 16 then, and had netted a brace of goals and assists, for Lyon against Nantes, sending the first firm signals of his precocious gifts towards the world at large. He looked beyond his age; not so much by the stubble and defined facial features he then spotted, but by the wisdom he showed with the ball on his floating feet.Mbappe, an early-bloomer himself, was not the first to positively wonder about his compatriot of Italian-Algerian descent raised in busy Lyon. He was only six years old and knocking the ball on an athletics track adjacent to the football pitch his elder brothers trained when a local coach Roger Martinez saw him and stood transfixed with the tricks he performed.