Kylian Mbappé's Journey: From Liverpool's Offer to PSG and Real Madrid
Kylian Mbappé still remembers the moment Liverpool almost changed his life.
Back in 2017, he was the teenage phenomenon tearing up Ligue 1 with Monaco, the most coveted young forward in Europe, and the subject of a tug-of-war between the continent’s superclubs. Among them, one destination quickly stood out to his family: Merseyside.
Anfield, through his mother’s eyes
The strongest voice pushing him towards the Premier League came from inside his own home. His mother made the trip to Liverpool herself, quietly taking the first steps in negotiations and getting a feel for the city and its football heartbeat.
“She went to the stadium, she met the people,” Mbappé recalled in an interview with The Athletic. “She was like, ‘It’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club.’ She went to Anfield and fell in love with it.”
Her verdict was clear.
“All the time we were talking. ‘What do you think, Mum?’ She’d say, ‘For me, you have to go to Liverpool.’ I said, ‘OK, OK, OK!’ because Jürgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him.”
While she was being swept away by the Anfield atmosphere, Liverpool’s hierarchy were doing everything they could behind the scenes to land the biggest signing of Klopp’s tenure.
Klopp’s sales pitch in the sky
Klopp did not just pick up the phone. He went airborne.
The German coach arranged a secret meeting with Mbappé on a luxurious five-room private jet, an extravagant setting for a conversation that could have reshaped Liverpool’s modern history.
Mbappé remembers the scene vividly.
“I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he was explaining his project,” he said. “I said, ‘You don’t need to convince me. You’re Jürgen Klopp, it’s Liverpool, a great club, so of course if I’m here, I have some interest. But I have other things, other projects, that are also good’.”
He knew the scale of the decision. Every option on the table was elite.
“I said to him, ‘Whatever decision I take is going to be a good decision because we are talking about some of the biggest clubs in the world.’ It’s a funny story. But in the end I took the decision to go to PSG because for me, born and raised in Paris, there was no better feeling than to show I could be a star in my home town.”
The jet kept circling. The project was laid out. The respect between player and manager was obvious. But the pull of Paris proved stronger than the lure of the Kop.
Paris chosen, Liverpool left wondering
Liverpool had gone all out. The discreet negotiations, the personal touch from Klopp, the family’s enthusiasm for the club – everything pointed towards a sensational Premier League move.
It never happened.
Instead, Mbappé joined PSG initially on loan before the deal became permanent for €180 million, a fee that underlined both his potential and the scale of the missed opportunity for Liverpool. While the club went on to win the Champions League and Premier League under Klopp, the thought of Mbappé in red has lingered as one of the great “what ifs” of the era.
For Mbappé, the decision unlocked a dominant spell in the French capital. He became the face of PSG’s project, racking up trophies and goals at a relentless pace while carrying the expectations of his home city.
World stage, new chapter
His rise did not stop at club level. Mbappé exploded onto the international stage with France, winning the World Cup in 2018 as a teenager and confirming his status as a generational talent.
He then lit up the 2026 tournament, surpassing Miroslav Klose and Lionel Messi to become the World Cup’s all-time leading scorer before France fell to eventual champions Spain in the semi-finals. By then, his place in football history was already secure.
Only after conquering France and the world did he finally decide to leave home.
In 2024, Mbappé completed his long-anticipated move to Real Madrid, closing the door on the Liverpool chapter that never was and opening another at the club that has defined European dominance for decades.
Liverpool once had him on a private jet, circling in the sky with Klopp spelling out a future in red. Instead, Mbappé chose Paris, then Madrid. The story of how close he came to Anfield now lives as a reminder: even the biggest clubs sometimes only brush against greatness, without ever quite managing to bring it down to earth.
