sport news Inside the Kylian Mbappe football factory where World Cup star learned his trade trends now

Kylian Mbappé is the man with the potential to quash England's World Cup dreams as he steps onto the pitch to spearhead the French attack in today's quarter final in Qatar.

The man is already a footballing great despite only being 23. Surrounded by numerous other pieces of silverware, a World Cup already sits in his trophy cabinet after he guided his team to glory in 2018 - even then only aged 19.

But when watching his brilliance, it's easy to forget the path that stars like Mbappé have taken on the road towards etching their name on the annals of world football.

Like many French footballing prodigies, Mbappé learned his craft at Clairefontaine, the national factory for creating stars.

The young Kylian Mbappé had already been identified as a future star of world football at just 12-years-old when he arrived at Clairefontaine.

But, of course, future stardom is never certain. Factors in and out of young player's hands can brutally snatch a career of glory from many of them.

At the time, the Mbappé family were living in the banlieues of Bondy. Part of the infamous Seine St Denis 93rd arrondissement, Mbappé grew up in one of France's poorest neighbourhoods,  which over the years has earned a reputation for high crime rates and violence. A young Mbappé could have easily become trapped in the troubled council estate.

If footballing greatness was his destiny though, Clairefontaine would be the place to give him the greatest chance of success.

Nestled in the expansive Rambouillet forest, an hour southwest of Paris, Clairefontaine is the factory where French football is produced. Dozens of football pitches surround the Montjoye castle, a renovated 17th century build with five-star facilities. The training base that has played home to greats like Thierry Henry and Louis Saha as they refined their stills in past years.

Each year, France's national football institute selects just 23 young boys aged around 13. Out of some 1,600 who trial for a converted space in the program, those selected will spent the next two years honing and developing their craft.

The Clairefontaine students must stick to a strict regime. They wake up at 6.50am and on weekdays are bussed to a local school. They then return back to the centre at lunch before spending the rest of the day completing their homework and undertaking intense and grueling training sessions.

After a long day of education and training, their mobile phones must then be handed in by 8.20pm.

There are six Clairefontaine graduates at the Qatar World Cup, four of them in the French national team including Mbappé. 

Clairefontaine was set up as a project in the 1970s after a stretch of failure by the French national team. They had failed to progress to the knockout stage of the

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