His mother, Fayza Lamari, is a former team handball player from Algeria, while father Wilfried, who was born in Cameroon, played soccer in France before becoming a youth coach at AS Bondy, the suburban Paris club where Mbappe got his start. Mbappe was later promoted to Clairefontaine, the elite soccer academy that served as a finishing school for many other French internationals, including World Cup winners Blaise Matuidi and Thierry Henry.