After 70 miserable minutes of football from the reigning champions, it was Mbappe who grabbed the game by the scruff of neck and pulled Les Bleus back from the brink of humiliation.

What could easily have been a dreary, drab and dry 2-0 defeat for France was ignited in the blink of an eye by Mbappe’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brace in the final 10 minutes.

In the end, the Paris Saint-Germain star followed in the footsteps of Sir Geoff Hurst as just the second male player to ever score a hat-trick in a World Cup final.

Marry that to scoring past Emiliano Martinez from the spot for the third time that evening in the ensuing shootout and it’s fair to say that Mbappe was nothing short of talismanic in Doha.

It’s a pretty remarkable fact when you remember that he was only 23 years old at the time, but was still spearheading the French cause as though he was a senior player in the dressing room.And, well, there’s every reason to suggest that he genuinely is with Mbappe making up for what he lacks in age with pure inspiration and a tangible genius.

WHAT DID MBAPPE SAY AT HT OF THE WORLD CUP FINAL?

In fact, now we know that Mbappe’s motivational qualities at the Lusail Iconic Stadium extended far beyond simply showing his compatriots how it’s done with his own individual quality.

That’s because a fascinating video has emerged from the French dressing room at half-time of the World Cup final with Mbappe motivating his teammates to turn the tide before it’s too late.

On Tuesday night, journalist Hadrien Grenier shared the engrossing footage captured by TF1 cameras where the former Monaco prodigy makes a desperate plea to his France comrades.

And according to a translation by Get French Football News, Mbappe was saying: “We can’t do worse. We come back on the pitch, we must pull it off. We conceded 2 goals, we can come back. F*** guys, this is once every 4 years, f***!”

VIDEO: MBAPPE APPEALS TO FRANCE SQUAD AT WORLD CUP FINAL

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From inspiring the team with his own personal drive for goals to trying to motivate them with his words at half-time, Mbappe really does have a lot of the qualities required to become an all-time great of the sport even at this stage.

It might not have been enough to secure back-to-back World Cup titles, but it surely played a key role in giving Argentina a lot more of a game than they were anticipating in the second-half and beyond.