ExpandJürgen Klopp with Kylian Mbappé after France's victory over Morocco in the World Cup quarter-final at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Photograph: Michael Regan/Fifa via Getty Images)
Jürgen Klopp with Kylian Mbappé after France's victory over Morocco in the World Cup quarter-final at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Photograph: Michael Regan/Fifa via Getty Images)
Kylian Mbappé has revealed how close he was to joining Liverpool in 2017 after talks with Jürgen Klopp in a private jet circling around the south of France.
Mbappé revealed in an interview with The Athletic that his mother’s heart was set on Merseyside after she “fell in love” with Anfield, but he ignored her pleas and opted for hometown club Paris Saint-Germain instead.
The Real Madrid forward, then 18 and at Monaco, finally ended up joining PSG, initially on a season-long loan before the move was made permanent for €180 million.
Mbappé said: “I had to take a decision. And yes, I was close to Liverpool. My mum was a big fan of Jürgen Klopp and the favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there.
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“She went there [for] the first step of the negotiations. She went to the city, the stadium, she met the people. 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. She watched a few games alone, to feel the atmosphere, because she wanted to imagine me in this stadium.”
Mbappe went on to win six Ligue 1 titles with PSG – he was a Champions League runners-up with them in 2020 – before joining Real Madrid in June 2024.
He added: “I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he [Klopp] was explaining his project.
“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’.
“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.”