Project Mbappe, Project This, Project That and 'Alladat': Are You Ready To Run?

‘Project Mbappe’ - the new song on sports-loving parents’ lips as they hope to make wealthy sports superstars who can put their names on the map. Lofty dreams but one never impossible.

Get ready to break a sweat.

Elite sports are money-spinning and life-fulfilling. The numbers called at the top level are insane and those who are there feel lucky. It’s a business thousands, if not millions of others also venture into but never get desired results. Those who make it are handsomely rewarded as it’s rare to make it regardless of how commonly you see successes.

To raise a successful person in any sphere of life is difficult. An incredible amount of energy, emotion and effort is burnt. That the result will be positive is down to minute details - some of which are not controllable, are natural, and impulsive. That's why it takes a great level of commitment to see success through. It’s a boring, painful and often lonely journey - except for some elite sports stars.

Miles Lewis-Skelly - 17, and one of the best players in Arsenal’s academy recently teamed up with the senior team in preseason. His parents are buzzing. Their dream of having a big football star may be closer but they deserve every positive feeling they have at the moment.

When Lewis-Skelly was 11, a football agent approached his mother to allow him to represent her son. She knew nothing about football, other than having a son who's football-crazy. She refused the proposal, and her motherhood instincts kicked in.

Seeing the need to offer her child some protection like a good mother should, Lewis-Skelly’s mum enrolled for a Master’s degree in Football Business. Her life’s course had to change at that moment. While the family has a gem in their hands, nothing is assured until it is.

Lewis-Skelly hopes to become an Arsenal star soon/Getty Images

Still not certain that she's done enough, she studied for FIFA Licensed Agent’s exams and passed. Now she sits at tables where her son’s life is discussed and represents his interests while allowing him to focus solely on improving his football. That's the sacrifice. And Lewis-Skelly’s mother is only one of many.

Ola Aina was once on his way to the training ground at Chelsea when his father’s car broke down midway. He was training hard at the time to get a contract from the club as a scholar. His father, knowing how important it is to get signed by elite clubs, sold his car on the spot and put his son on the train. Nothing must stop his shine. That was his sacrifice and Aina said the first thing he bought when he received his first salary as a professional was a car for his parents.

Endrick is one of Brazilian football’s newest sensations and can be deemed to be a future star of Brazilian football. Joining Real Madrid, arguably the biggest football club in the world is as big as chances come for a teenager. But that achievement was at least three generations in the making. Endrick’s grandfather and father tried to become football stars but didn't find much success at it. When he signed with Palmeiras as a little boy, his mother had to follow him to live in the club’s hostels, abandoning everything else and not allowing their lives’ greatest chance slip past them. Endrick said there were days his mother was lonely and lived on crumbs as she left work and home behind.

“Sometimes Mom would literally be counting our last change. Dad was sending us money, but these were the days before Pix, when you couldn’t send money instantly, and it would take a day or two to go through. On the good days, when the money came through, Mom would cook sausages for the other boys. But most days, we only had enough to feed ourselves, and she felt so guilty cooking in the house, because they could smell the meat cooking, and they would ask if there was any for them, too…. What could she say? There was nothing left. 

Actually, it was so painful for her that she stopped cooking completely. 

I remember there were times when I was kind of hungry, just before bed, you know? Like, I could eat. I would ask Mom if she had something, and she would say, “Just go to sleep, Endrick. Sleep will make it go away.”

Sometimes, when we were really desperate for money, Mom was able to borrow some rice or some change. But one day, brother…. She had no favors left. She had no money and no one to go to. 

She called Dad and said, “Douglas, I’m hungry … I don’t know what to do.”

Dad sent 50 reais, but it wasn’t going to be available until the next day. She got down on her knees and prayed to God to help her. Then she got her bag from her chair and started pulling out everything, digging into the bottom. 

She found two reais, brother. Loose change. A gift from God.

She went to the grocery store and bought some two-day-old bread. And if you ask her now, she will tell you that it tasted incredible. She says that hunger is a very strange sensation, and it makes even stale bread taste like heaven.”

Excerpt from The Players’ Tribune

Their son had done just enough to earn a professional contract with Palmeiras and that changed their lives for a start.

It is not every time you see a 15-year-old footballer get to sit in a legendary Man United dressing room, but David Beckham broke that code, thanks to his talent and Alex Ferguson. Beckham, touted to become a Manchester United great at the time made an incredible difference for the club when he played and he had the bragging right to spread the word about his talent. Beckham Sr, his father said he has more than 2000 video clips of his son playing from amateur levels on pitches where dogs walkthrough, to grand European nights where the songs of victory became bliss. He saw it all.

Rodrygo Goes may have won multiple La Liga and UEFA Champions League titles but that may never have been possible without the pain and sweat of dedicated parents and an uncle. Rodrygo said his mother would prepare him for school 4 a.m everyday even while he's sleeping, get his clothes and shoes on and his uncle would drive him down to school and training everyday.

“I had to be at Santos at 7 a.m.. So my mum, you know what she did? At 4 a.m. she would dress me while I was asleep. She would put on the socks, the shorts and the shirt. She’d pack my school uniform. Then she’d carry me into the car, put me down in the back seat and leave a pillow under my head. Her brother would drive me to Santos, and I’d wake up and eat in the car. After training I’d go back to Osasco for school. And then I’d play futsal at São Paulo. I’m not gonna lie: It was f***ing hard”

His academy, the football academy that later gave him a big chance to make a mark in football was far away from his parents. But he had to be there, and someone had to make it happen, for his sake.

Every sports star has a story to tell. From Bukayo Saka’s father ‘Yomi’ being a regular presence at his son’s games as an academy player to Ezri Konsa’s brother watching all his brother’s games from amateur to professional levels, there's always the sacrifice of time and emotion. The greatest footballers today have incredible support systems behind them making sure everything works as it should and giving them the impetus to only keep going.

Kylian Mbappe’s parents, Alfie Haaland sitting within and leading the team that makes Erling Haaland’s career work, Neymar’s father, Jude Bellingham’s parents, the grandfathers who never miss games and the mothers who never watch because of the emotional torture it takes them through; there is blood, sorrow, tears, pain and joy behind every sporting success up there - yet even that sacrifice isn't a guarantee.

The life of Yann Gueho is one such example. So good he was called the mixture of every good thing in football. One of his former coach once likened him to Messi, Neymar and Mbappe in one statement.

“What I can say is that in his last moments on the pitch playing football, he hadn’t lost anything. It was a pleasure to see him touch the ball. At the moment he accelerates, you can see Messi, you can see Neymar, you can see Mbappe.

“Ooof.”

Gueho, a former Chelsea Academy star was good and cocky. He could turn games in their head and produce moments of magic that held everyone spellbound. A headline described him to be as “talented as a god - disruptive as devil”. Guehi was so good he was scouted for Chelsea but incessant disciplinary issues led him out of the club. He didn't stop there.

He soon engaged in criminal activities, gang violence and got arrested and jailed in France. Even in prison, he was so good that he earned a trial at a Ligue 1 club. Gueho lacked nothing, especially motherly love. His mother, Anne-Marie’s sacrifice felt wasted until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she could point to a form of closure and a reason things never seemed in order.

Gueho is one of her six children but the one who had the gift to place the family’s name on the map. It never happened.  “For me, it’s a catastrophe,” she said in an interview with The Athletic.

“Honestly, at that age (16), he is the player that shocked me the most in terms of talent. Ability/skills-wise, he was 10 classes above everyone else. He could take on absolutely anyone one-versus-one — I had never seen this in my life. The ball was stuck to his feet,” one of his former coaches said.

“A pure talent,” said Jeremie Boga, a former Chelsea winger who played with Gueho in the club’s academy. “He’s not really known to the world. But if you ask anyone at Chelsea, they will probably tell you that Yann’s the best player who has ever played in Chelsea’s academy. He was incredible.”

Gueho’s story is similar to many others in the nature of a ballooned expectation and deflated reality. It’s bitter pill to swallow. For some others, it’s bad injuries - a knee twisting and never being the same again or an ankle breaking and never regaining its previous strength. At every point, there's a family - mother, father, brother, sister, partner who shares in that pain. They all celebrate when the story is joyful too.

Football is just one of the sports where family members leave it all out to make things happen. Basketball, Tennis, Athletics, Formula 1 and every sport that has ever produced an elite professional has seen one of such stories.

‘King Richards’ saw Will Smith win an Oscar for the first time after his invigorating acting detailing the amount of sacrifice expended by Serena and Venus Williams’ father.

Anthony Hamilton, a barely middle-class automobile engineer had to work four jobs and with his son through a very expensive and emotion-laden sport where he can now call himself the father of arguably the greatest F1 driver ever seen. Always by Lewis’ side, he’s a prime example of just how much it takes to get on such projects.

“We started from a council house, we worked hard to get to where we are, and every day he still does the same graft, so he never comes [here] half-hearted – he comes full-hearted and gives his all.”

Lewis is still the only black driver in F1 and arguably the best the sport has ever seen, thanks to a family that fought never to break their son’s dream and aspiration despite breaking apart - his parents divorced when he was only two and he moved in with his father to focus on a career in F1 when he turned 10.

Success stories are nice to watch, beautiful to read and inspiring to hear, but it takes a lifetime of total dedication to make one happen. Families see the best and worst of the ones we call the best. It’s deep and beautiful, and a message that the products may be glossy but the project is far from fine - it takes pain and power. And especially when one considers the selfishness of an average child, the reality of how big a toil it is becomes more apparent - ask Tsitsipas’ father.