Kylian and Ethan Mbappe: Master and apprentice join forces at Paris Saint-Germain

“When Kylian wants to play, there’s not a lot you can say,” shrugged Luis Enrique, manager of Paris Saint-Germain, handing over a little of the authority of his position to his sometimes domineering superstar.

There had been a logic in resting Mbappe for the in the Coupe de France trip on Sunday night to Revel, of the regionalised sixth tier of French football, as the Ligue 1 champions would have won comfortably without their talisman striker.

He could have been asked to keep himself fresh for the much bigger challenges that spread ahead of him and his club in the first half of 2024. But he wanted to play and so the coach agreed.

Mbappe’s hat-trick was the difference between winning 6-0 and the eventual 9-0 rout. So comfortable was the outcome that Mbappe invited his junior colleague Gonzalo Ramos to take – and score – a penalty, a duty normally reserved for King Kylian.

So it was that the coach let the player’s desire shape team selection, and by the end of an evening in which a 10,000 crowd had a privileged sight of Mbappe in full flow, they had saw a bonus Mbappe on the pitch, too – Kylian’s younger brother, Ethan.

With an hour on the clock, he came off the bench. The 17-year-old had played a single minute, last month, for PSG’s first team up until then, but the promotion is part of a steady trajectory. “I’ve liked the way he trains,” said Luis Enrique of the midfielder, who picked Ethan to go on the club’s pre-season tour of Asia.

There he was without fraternal company. At that stage in the tumultuous relationship between Mbappe senior and PSG, employer and best-paid employee were at odds, the striker banished from summer training after he turned down a one-year contract extension.

A solution was eventually found but