France, Mbappé's Empty Chair and the Name Stepping Out of the Shadows

At the Clairefontaine training centre there is a pair of boots set neatly under a chair, laced so tightly that you can hear the strap pull in the silence. The person lacing them is not Kylian Mbappé. Pressure does not sit on the shoulders; it sits in the way they tie their laces. After many years standing at the end of the corridor, I learned that a team's biggest changes never start on the tactics board, but with an empty chair and someone quietly sitting down beside it.

France entered this international window in what I call a honeymoon. Two matches, two wins, against Turkey and Belgium. A new head coach took the hot seat, and no one in the press room dared ask the hard question. But I noticed something the scoreline does not say: that team won without ever truly flowing. People call it solidity and a ruthlessness to grind out wins. To me, it is the signature of a side living on moments rather than on dominance.

Then Mbappé got injured. No one said for how long. It is precisely that undefined gap that changed the rhythm of the dressing room.

Stepping into that gap is Esteban Lepaul, the Rennes forward. A name most viewers have to look up. Last season he was reported to have scored 21 goals in 34 Ligue 1 matches, topping the league's scoring chart. For a young French striker, that is the kind of number that makes Premier League scouts reopen their notebooks. What matters is not the goal tally, but the kind of striker Lepaul represents: a No. 9 anchored in the box, duelling, holding the ball up, living on crosses and long passes.

This is a re-profiling, not a like-for-like replacement. Mbappé attacks with pace, sprinting into the space behind the defence. Lepaul attacks with strength, holding the ball so teammates can burst forward. If he really starts, France's attacking build-up must shift from playing the ball into space to playing the ball into a fixed target. Those are two different football languages, and a national team cannot speak both in the same match without a fracture.

They say the coach stumbled upon Lepaul. I dislike the word stumbled. At elite level there are no accidents, only preparation meeting the right moment. A forward who emerges that way is rarely handed an entire tactical structure built around him. He is placed into an existing system and must carve out his own place.

In the dressing room, reputation tears faster than tape.

This is where I want to linger, because the Lepaul story is being told in a familiar mould: from pain to glory. A hard childhood, a turning point, a star flaring up. That mould travels well. It moves readers. But it also inflates a sample that is very small.

One season, 34 matches, is not enough to canonise a striker. A single national-team cap even less. And here I must say plainly what someone standing at the end of the corridor is obliged to say: most of the figures circulating about Lepaul need to be verified before anyone builds a whole plan around them. The specificity of a number is not proof of its accuracy. One source says 21 goals in 34 games; another says nothing. Between those two lies a grey zone the writer must have the courage to name.

I once sat for 40 minutes in a dressing room at San Siro, recording nothing, only writing by hand in a worn notebook, and learned that what is said is not always what matters most. I do not write down what they say. I remember what they keep silent. The silence around Lepaul, no official statement, no return date for Mbappé, is the most noteworthy bulletin of all.

The Italy match is the real test. Two wins over Turkey and Belgium carry less information than a tight game against an equal opponent. If France play well, people will talk about squad depth, and depth truly is their structural advantage. A national team with a pool of stars deep enough can absorb the absence of one star without collapsing. If France play poorly, the first cycle of criticism begins, and it will arrive faster than people expect.

There is a paradox I want readers to carry away. France can win without Mbappé, which reduces dependency pressure. But if the attack underperforms, all the criticism lands on his absence, which increases narrative pressure. One event, two opposing pressures. Only someone inside the dressing room feels both at once.

With Lepaul I keep the stance of a long-time observer: curious, but in no hurry to believe. A strong display against Italy will lock in the new-star story. A quiet one will open the flash-in-the-pan story. The media machine that raised him today is ready to turn away tomorrow. That is the rule, not a betrayal.

I stand at the end of the corridor, hearing clearly the sigh of an era, and also the footsteps of someone searching for a place between two eras.

When the stadium is empty, I finally understand what applause really is. For Lepaul, the applause has not yet begun. And perhaps that is the best thing that could happen to him: to step into the light without carrying a crown in advance.