Alright so this morning I’m drinking coffee scrolling through football highlights – Mbappé scores again obviously – and suddenly I wonder: how freaking young was this guy when France won the World Cup? Seriously, he looked like a kid out there. So I grab my laptop thinking “easy Google search, five seconds done.” Yeah right.
The Frustrating Search Begins
First I type “mbappe world cup win age” into search. First result says he was 19. Cool. But the next link? Claims he turned 20 during the tournament. Third site says 19 years old. Fourth one… also 19. Just messy. Annoying when sources can’t agree on something this basic. Needed to figure this out properly myself.
Next I pulled up his Wikipedia page. Says his birthday is December 20, 1998. Okay, solid starting point. Now needed the exact date of the 2018 World Cup final. Another quick search – France beat Croatia on July 15, 2018. Jotted both dates down:
- Born: December 20, 1998
- World Cup Final: July 15, 2018
Time to do the actual age math. Forget online calculators – just pen and paper works. How many years between December 20, 1998 and December 20, 2017? That’s exactly 19 years. Simple. But wait – the final was in July 2018, before his December birthday. So he hadn’t turned 20 yet.
So from December 20, 2017 to July 15, 2018 – how many months? December to January is 1 month, January to February is another, keeping count… February, March, April, May, June, July. That’s 7 months? No. Started counting wrong. Let me try properly:
- End of Dec 2017 to end of Jan 2018 = about 1 month
- Jan to end of Feb = 1 month
- Feb to end of Mar = 1 month
- Mar to end of Apr = 1 month
- Apr to end of May = 1 month
- May to end of Jun = 1 month
- Jun to July 15? Only half a month since end of June to July 15 is roughly 15 days. Call it half a month.
So total? Roughly 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0.5 = 6.5 months. Meaning he was 19 years and about 6.5 months old when they lifted the trophy.
Finally I cross-checked using official FIFA match documents. Found the France squad list for the 2018 final – confirmed his birth date listed as 20 December 1998. Match date confirmed July 15, 2018. FIFA calculates player ages exactly. Final verification: they listed his age during the final as 19 years old. Yes.
So yeah, it’s settled. Kid was 19. Nineteen! Winning the biggest prize in football. Makes me feel ancient honestly. But it was cool to dig into the dates myself instead of just trusting some random website. Always satisfying to trace it back step by step.