It’s official; Kylian Mbappe will be leaving PSG at the end of the season. The French football star made a video declaring that at the end of the season, he would be leaving the club. The Mbappe transfer saga which has dragged on for over three years now has finally concluded and it looks like his next destination is no other place than Real Madrid. Since the transfer rumors started way back in 2021, Mbappe has been linked to many clubs but only Real Madrid seemed to be on the table for the French star. It looked like he was going to move in 2022 but Mbappe shocked the football world by signing a contract extension that kept him at the club till 2024. It’s 2024 now at it looks like his PSG chapter is finally over and what a chapter it was.
Mbappe’s talent was evident even from childhood. He was born to an Algerian mother who plays handball and a Cameroonian father who is a football coach, so sports runs in his blood. He began his career at six years old with AS Bondy, a team in Bondy, Paris where he was raised and quickly made a name for himself. His talent was glaring and he eventually moved to an elite football academy called Clairefontaine and this is where he really began to attract serious attention from big teams. His performance even at the age of 11 was so impressive that clubs like Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, and Man City all wanted to sign him.
Real Madrid even invited him to the club to train with their under-11 and see the club’s facilities which is when he met his idol Cristiano Ronaldo and took that iconic photo. He even played a match with the Chelsea youth team but eventually decided to sign with Ligue 1 club AS Monaco which is where the world started to take notice of him. Mbappe was initially signed to join and lead their B team but his level of skill, maturity, and talent earned him a promotion to their main team after just three weeks and he had a ball. He made his debut for the club in the 2015/2016 season at age 16 making him the youngest player the club had ever fielded.
The 16/17 season was Mbappe’s breakthrough season. He scored 28 goals and made 14 assists in 46 games for the club that season at just 18 years old and helped Monaco win the Ligue 1. In that same season, his performance in the Champions League helped Monaco advance to the semi-finals beating teams like Man City and Borussia Dortmund. The goals he scored were pivotal to Monaco’s progression and doing it on the big stage made the world start to take notice of the young French talent and top clubs have been in hot pursuit ever since.
PSG splashed the cash to bring Mbappe to the Parc des Princes in the summer of 2017 for a fee rumored to be over £100m. He was supposed to team up with Neymar who was also brought in that summer to lead the line for PSG and it worked in the Ligue 1 at least. Mbappe hit the ground running and even almost outshone Neymar. He quickly became the face of the PSG team, which is no easy feat considering that Neymar; a much older, more famous, and accomplished player was also on the team. And then came the legendary World Cup campaign in 2018. Mbappe was called up to the French National team for the World Cup and he more than delivered scoring goal after goal to eventually help France win the 2018 World Cup. He deservedly won the FIFA Best Young Player award in that campaign and cemented himself as one of the best young players in football that may eventually reach the levels of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Mbappe continued to impress and racked up goals and assists in the succeeding seasons. His performance reached another peak in the 2022 World Cup campaign. Mbappe’s performance in the competition saw him win the highest goal scorer award after scoring 7 goals over the course of the competition including a World Cup final hat trick. A hat trick on literally the biggest stage of football only confirmed what we already knew; that Mbappe would be the one to succeed Messi and Ronaldo.
Transfer rumors hit a fever pitch in 2022 when his contract with PSG then expired. It looked like he was set to move to Real Madrid but he shocked the world and disappointed Real Madrid fans when he announced he would be staying at the club as he signed a contract extension that would keep him there till 2024. 2024 is finally here, Mbappe is finally leaving PSG and it looks like he is Real Madrid bound. Adding Mbappe to the already star-studded Real Madrid team is reminiscent of the Galacticos era. It’s scary to think about for opponents and for Mbappe, it gives him a chance to finally win the Champions League and improve his chances of winning the Ballon d’Or. Real Madrid has produced all the Ballon d’Or winners that are not Lionel Messi in the past 12 years and their players are again favorites to win this season’s Ballon d’Or; Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Jnr. They own the Champions League at this point so it’s a choice destination and the perfect place for Mbappe.
Mbappe leaves PSG a club legend and probably the best player to ever play for the club. He is the club’s highest goal scorer with 256 goals in 305 games. He is hot on Olivier Giroud’s record for France’s highest goal scorer of all time.
There is no official word from Real Madrid yet but all the stars point to Los Blancos as Mbappe’s next club. Going by what happened in 2022, nothing is sure until Mbappe is holding up a Real Madrid shirt. How do you think Mbappe will perform at Real Madrid? Do you think he will finally win the Champions League?