Until the end of this pleasant evening in Nantes, it aroused impatience.
After being last to get off the PSG bus which had just arrived at Beaujoire 1h30 before kick-off, Kylian Mbappé brought up the rear again when the entire Parisian delegation left the Nantes enclosure at 11:37 p.m.
Hat on his head, number 7 crossed the mixed zone where there was a cluster of journalists waiting for a statement, a word, a sign to find out what was going on in the head of the main host of the PSG week.
Nothing happened, the world champion sped off without saying a word towards the small van waiting for him in the depths of Beaujoire before taking the plane back to Paris.
The fans, too, were waiting for him, shouting his first name at the top of their lungs, while Randal Kolo Muani provided after-sales service to the supporters of his former club.
But the “Kyks” slipped away without looking back.
The scene was revealing of the last few days where the name of Kylian Mbappé was on everyone's lips after he announced his departure from the Parisian club at the end of the season, but without the main person concerned saying a word about his situation which is shaking up the world of football.
No employee of the capital club had ventured to raise the subject either, Luis Enrique preferring to wait for its president Nasser Al-Khelaïfi and Mbappé to speak before doing so in turn.
We finally had to wait for Danilo Pereira to talk about it outright to get a first impression of this crazy week.
The Portuguese, like all his partners, was informed on Friday, before training, by the world champion of his decision to leave.
Unsurprisingly, he did not speak much on this issue, taking care to look at the club's press officer at his side when speaking.
He simply acknowledged that the turmoil around the striker's future was not a concern for the group.
“How have we lived this week?
It was normal.
It’s normal for the team and for him too, explained the Portuguese defender.
It's not my place to talk about that.
Will this disrupt the group?
I do not believe.
It's different to play without him.
But we have players who can make the difference.
» The Parisian coach was content with a simple “no” when answering the same question.
Always a lodger and competitor
Above all, this does not seem to disturb Kylian Mbappé who ended his week with a 21st goal scored, from a penalty, in 20 Ligue 1 matches after coming off the bench at the hour mark. His wide smile displayed on the substitutes' bench where he rubbed shoulders with his friends Hakimi and Dembélé reflected well the lightness with which he is going through this period, without forgetting the imperative of results and the next deadlines.
Insatiable, imperturbable, a competitor at heart, the French striker ignores external elements in reality, being simply determined to do the job until the end of his contract on June 30.
You only had to see his performance of the week in the Champions League against Real Sociedad (2-0) to realize his involvement on the field, while he had announced his decision to his president on previous Friday at the PSG Campus.
It was he who showed the way to his partners by opening the score, putting his team back on track.
Those who have been around him in recent days or in the moments following his famous meeting with “NAK” say nothing else: the striker's attitude has not changed.
He remains this lodger in the privacy of the locker room, never stingy with jokes while maintaining this pronounced taste for competition in the little exercises in training.
The prospect of his future departure – certainly to Real Madrid – is, in any case, clearly not likely to alter his performance and his mood.
He will still have plenty of time to prove it in the weeks to come.
Paris is counting on him.