Kylian Mbappé's Decision: Paris over Liverpool
Kylian Mbappé still remembers how close he came to walking out at Anfield instead of the Parc des Princes.
Back in 2017, he was the most wanted teenager in Europe, tearing up Ligue 1 with Monaco and forcing the continent’s giants into a scramble for his signature. Among the suitors, one club quickly won over his family: Liverpool.
Anfield temptation
While agents and executives circled, Mbappé’s mother quietly flew to Merseyside to do her own homework. No entourage, no fanfare. Just a mother trying to feel a city.
"She went to the stadium, she met the people," Mbappé told 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."
She watched games, soaked up the atmosphere, and came back with a clear verdict.
"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!'" Mbappé recalled. The pull was strong: the Premier League, the Kop, and a manager he already admired.
Klopp’s pitch in the sky
Jurgen Klopp was not about to let that chance pass without a fight. Liverpool rolled out an extraordinary charm offensive, including a clandestine meeting on a five-room private jet – an audacious setting for a sales pitch.
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. Klopp outlined his vision, his plans, how Mbappé would fit into a Liverpool side he was reshaping into a European force.
Mbappé didn’t need convincing about the club or the coach.
"I said, 'You don't need to convince me. You're Jurgen 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 that whatever he chose, he would land at one of the sport’s true heavyweights.
"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."
Liverpool had gone all out. The jet, the secrecy, the personal touch. In the end, it still wasn’t enough.
Paris over Merseyside
Mbappé turned down Liverpool and chose Paris. First on loan to PSG, then permanently for €180 million – a fee that underlined the scale of the talent Liverpool had narrowly missed.
The move launched a dominant era in the French capital. Titles piled up. So did goals. On the international stage, he exploded into global superstardom, winning the World Cup with France as a teenager in 2018.
The story didn’t stop there. At the 2026 World Cup, Mbappé climbed above Miroslav Klose and Lionel Messi to become the tournament’s all-time leading scorer, even though France fell to eventual winners Spain in the semi-finals.
The choice he made in 2017 – Paris over Liverpool – shaped a decade of European football.
A different path to white
Now, with his legend already written in France, Mbappé has finally stepped away from home. In 2024, he completed his long-anticipated move to Real Madrid, trading the Eiffel Tower for the Bernabéu and opening a new chapter at the club that has haunted his dreams since childhood.
Liverpool’s flirtation with Mbappé remains one of the great “what ifs” of the Klopp era. For Mbappé, it is a story told with a smile: a secret jet, a mother in love with Anfield, and a decision that sent him on a path from Paris prodigy to global icon.
The question now is simple: how different might the football landscape look if he had listened to his mother and walked out in red instead of staying in his home city?
