Despite not having played with France on Friday, Real Madrid superstar forward Kylian Mbappe managed to have a big influence on another game taking place.
Although we are keeping very busy and working very hard to keep you updated on all things Real Madrid throughout the summer, there is a natural tendency for people to have a focus on this summer's FIFA World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico.
We have nearly finished the round of 32, and as soon as Saturday at 19:00 CET, the round of 16 will begin when co-hosts Canada will take on Morocco, albeit it will take place in the USA.
Although France did not play on Friday - in fact they will be the second round of 16 game on Saturday, after the aforementioned clash between Canada and Morocco, when they take on Paraguay in Philadelphia - Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe still had a big impact on a game that took place.
Indeed so, as the Frenchman incredibly played a big part in the penalty shootout between Egypt and Australia in Arlington, Texas (What is a Polar Bear doing, etc), which the former won 4-2.
Just ahead of the shootout, Australia manager Tony Popovic made the decision to bring on veteran goalkeeper Mathew Ryan for youngster Patrick Beach, who had surprisingly got the nod as number one for the tournament, and was taking his chance ever so well to date.
It was a bold call to leave Ryan out the starting XI, considering his experience and the fact that he is captain of the team. Well, Popovic decided that experience would be very important for spot kicks.
Just before the penalties began, the Egypt coaching staff and players were going through their preparation on a laptop. You could quite clearly see that they were watching clips of Ryan facing penalties. Good research considering he was not in the starting XI.
Well, one clip in particular they were looking at was a video of Mbappe scoring a penalty against Levante last season - the club of whom Ryan was playing for last season - during a 2-0 win for Real Madrid back in January of this year, Alvaro Arbeloa's first league game in charge of the club.
For this penalty in particular, Mbappe stuttered before sending the keeper the wrong way, even though the ball was not in the corner. You could see that he dived early in the clip.
And that is how it transpired. Despite coming on specifically for penalties, he did not save a single one, diving the wrong way and diving early for all of them. Perhaps the Egypt players learned from Mbappe exactly what they were going to do - and it certainly worked out for them.
