Kylian Mbappe reveals how close he came to joining Liverpool prior to Real Madrid move | OneFootball

In the summer of 2024, Real Madrid finally secured the services of Kylian Mbappe with a move that had been years in the making. Florentino Perez had been after him for the best part of a decade, although his plans could have been thrown into serious doubt back in 2017, before he swapped AS Monaco for Paris Saint-Germain.

Mbappe was clear that he would be leaving Monaco that summer, but his destination was up in the air. Real Madrid wanted him, but they were never a leading contender – that was PSG, but also Liverpool. Jurgen Klopp recently revealed that he tried to sign the French forward, who has now given his side of the story during an interview with The Athletic (via MD).

“It happened a long time ago, when I was at Monaco. I had to make a decision, and I was very close to Liverpool. My mother was a big fan of Klopp, and it was her favourite destination. She wanted it to go there. I didn’t listen to the offer because I wanted to play in my city, in Paris. I didn’t want to leave my country until I grew older, but, yes, my mother always said, ‘Liverpool, you’ll play at Anfield, it’ll be crazy for you’. She went to Liverpool and fell in love. She went to several games, to see the atmosphere, and because she wanted to imagine what it would be like for me to be in that stadium.”

Real Madrid will be thankful that Mbappe didn’t go to Liverpool

In the end, Mbappe joined PSG, whom he spent seven years with before moving to Real Madrid in 2024. Has he joined Liverpool instead, it would surely have been more difficult for him to fulfil his dream of joining Los Blancos, given the money on offer in the Premier League. Fortunately, Perez and co. never needed to worry about that possibility.