Read for 5 minutesAtlanta17 Jul 2026 12:06 PM IST
Kylian Mbappe’s first touch in the semi-final against Spain was incredible. He turns his body to the side so he can take the ball in his stride and waltz away. He braked, because there was an intruder, Fabian Ruiz. He popped up out of nowhere and cajoled the ball away from the French. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but there he was, avoiding danger in unmanned space.
The next second, just as he appeared, he disappeared into the vastness of the arena, wearing a recognizable glowing red shirt. That’s how Fabian — he asks reporters to print his first name — wants the world to see him. The moment he chooses. Or rather how the action unfolds. Fabian was a few yards behind Adrien Rabiot as he wrestled the ball from Lamine Yamal. But his binocular eyes noticed that Pedro Porro was steady on the right and Mbappe was running into space. It’s vision, and ability to process reading situations that make him a manager’s favorite to unseat the original favourite.
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A more classical alternative to Luis de la Fuente was Pedri. The Barcelona midfielder can navigate tight spaces with breathtaking passes, defence-splitting crosses and the stealth of an alley cat. But against France – Belgium’s game where Fabian displaced Pedri in the starting eleven felt like a rehearsal – the manager needed a more dynamic presence, one who could make quick, one-touch, catch and pass passages, where players glided like piranhas on water. He is like a double agent, moving in the shadows, secretly laying traps.
Fabian Ruiz and France’s Kylian Mbappe fight for the ball during the World Cup semi-final. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
At its center was Fabian, though he would be trailless in highlight reels, even extended reels. He operates on the left side of midfield, either in a double pivot to Rodri’s left or ahead of him, in a No. 8 role. From there, he typically has three preferred routes. A forward in the number ten role, Fizz makes late runs into the box to threaten goal-scoring and often scores, as he did with a cracker against Belgium. Turn left, let winger Alex Bayana in and thread down the line. At times, he also drops back for left-back Mark Cucurella’s underlapping runs. He punches balls between the lines to teammates at the top of the pitch.
More than statistics
He goes undetected under the cloak of invisibility. He was just as influential as Rodri at the European Championships, but in a different way. He scored two goals and several assists; Maintained 88 percent passing accuracy, made 24 successful tackles and tied tournament highs with 21 possession recoveries. In the World Cup, he scored the opener against Belgium, creating five chances and maintaining a pass percentage of 92.5, in only 261 minutes, mainly in cameo roles. But he’s almost an anti-statist, a footballer who can’t be easily quantified or explained away in his prodigious utility.
His manager at PSG, Luis Enrique, once said: “He has everything a manager wants, intelligence, awareness, intuition. Everyone sings about Quicha or Dembele or Vitinha but Fabian is essential to the team.”
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Abandonment of mother
He is humble and hardworking, the first to arrive at practice and the last to leave. He says he owes these qualities to his mother. She is his idol, he says in an interview with ABC (Andalusia Broadcast Corporation). He was only 12 when his parents divorced. His mother had to raise three children with him in Los Palacios y Villafranca – a municipality in the province of Seville with about 39,000 inhabitants. “She spent the day on the motorway; she hardly had time to eat because she had all three children in front of her. My mother had to support me and my siblings separately. Home, three children, studies, taking me to Betis for training – it was not easy. Financially, we went through tough times,” he said.
She then got a job at the Real Betis club, where her son enrolled when he was eight years old. She was the dressing room attendant and his eyes watered when he saw her clean up the mess he and his teammates had made. “I was a bit embarrassed at first, because she was cleaning the dressing room and I was changing it,” he said.
As he grew up, he learned the true value of sacrifice. “She gave everything she had to make my dream come true. I didn’t see it when I was young; I didn’t understand what she was doing because I was so young. She sacrificed so much for me every day,” he recalled. Whenever he runs on the ground, her face flashes in his mind and then changes his invisible-actions.