Kylian Mbappé Reveals Close Call with Liverpool
Kylian Mbappé has revealed just how close Liverpool came to changing the course of his career – and perhaps their own recent history – when he was still a teenager at Monaco.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Athletic, the France captain described a decisive summer in 2017, when an 18-year-old Mbappé found himself on a private jet over the south of France, face to face with Jürgen Klopp.
It was no routine pitch. It was Liverpool going all in.
Klopp on a jet, a mother in love with Anfield
Mbappé was still at Monaco, still on the brink rather than the global superstar he has since become, when Liverpool made their move. The club flew Klopp to meet him on a private plane, with Mbappé’s mother and agent, Fayza Lamari, also on board.
“I had to take a decision. And yes, I was close to Liverpool,” Mbappé said. “My mum was a big fan of Jürgen Klopp and the favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there.”
Lamari did more than just sit in on talks. She went to Anfield herself, early in the negotiations, to feel the place, to see if it could be her son’s football home.
“She was like, ‘It’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club,’” Mbappé recalled. She attended games alone, soaking in the noise, the colour, the famous European crackle of the stadium, trying to picture her son in red.
“All the time we were talking. [I would say:] ‘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.”
Klopp himself later lifted the lid on that meeting, telling German outlet Magenta TV earlier this year that the flight – from Blackpool to Nice – was “the most expensive non-transfer we ever made”.
Paris over Anfield
For all the charm, all the effort, and a mother’s clear preference, Liverpool still lost out. The pull of home proved stronger.
“I didn’t listen because I wanted to play in my city, Paris,” Mbappé said. “I didn’t want to leave my country before I was someone.”
He chose Paris Saint-Germain, initially joining on loan for the 2017-18 season before making the move permanent the following year. From there, he grew into the face of French football, the star in the city where he was born and raised, before finally sealing his long-anticipated switch to Real Madrid in 2024.
“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,” he said.
Liverpool, under Klopp, went on to win the Champions League and Premier League without him. Mbappé, in turn, became a World Cup winner and one of the defining players of his generation.
But somewhere between Blackpool and Nice, on a private jet over the Mediterranean, a different football universe briefly flickered into view – one where Mbappé really did run out at Anfield in red, just as his mother had imagined.
