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Despite the strong recommendation of his mother and co-agent, Fayza Lamari, Kylian Mbappé rejected Liverpool's interest in 2017 in order to become "a star in my home town" with Paris Saint-Germain.
Nearly a decade ago, Mbappé's exceptional talent was already plain for all to see. The lightning-fast teenager had just torn through Europe's finest, guiding Monaco to a stunning Ligue 1 championship while also scoring six knockout-stage goals on the way to the Champions League semifinals. "When I saw him the first time," legendary former Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger recalled, "I said, 'It's Pelé!'"
It was clear that Mbappé had already outgrown the modest setting of the Principality, and the competition for his signature that summer was intense. PSG ultimately won the race, bringing the French international in on loan with an agreement to pay over $200 million (€180 million) for his services the following summer.
However, as Mbappé has now revealed for the first time, Liverpool were very much part of the conversation.
How Close Liverpool Came to Signing Mbappe
In the race to sign any typical 18-year-old, winning over the parent leading negotiations is usually a crucial part of the process. Jürgen Klopp quickly charmed Lamari.
"My mom was a huge fan of Jürgen Klopp and her preferred destination for me was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there," Mbappé told The Athletic. "I didn't listen because I wanted to play in my city, Paris. I didn't want to leave my country before I had made a name for myself. But yes, my mom kept saying 'Liverpool—you're going to be there, playing at Anfield, it's going to be incredible for you.' I was like, 'O.K.!'
"She went there [for] the first stage of the negotiations. She visited the city, she went to the stadium, she met the people. She said, 'It's a wonderful club, everyone is so welcoming, it's a family club, a big club.'
"She went to Anfield and fell in love with it. She watched a few matches on her own, just to soak up the atmosphere, because she wanted to picture me playing in that stadium.
"We were always talking about it. 'What do you think, Mom?' She'd say, 'For me, you have to go to Liverpool.' I said, 'O.K., O.K., O.K.!' because Jürgen Klopp was a fantastic manager. I met him and had a great relationship with him. I had enormous respect for him."
Mbappé was equally taken by the allure of Liverpool and their charismatic manager, who personally delivered the club's pitch during a meeting aboard a private jet. Hovering 37,000 feet above a landing strip in Blackpool, Klopp laid out his vision.
"The most expensive non-transfer we [Liverpool] ever invested in," the German coach reflected during German television coverage of the World Cup. "We flew from Blackpool to Nice. In Nice, the entire Mbappé family boarded a private jet with five rooms or something. We really pulled out all the stops. Then we flew around in circles, talked with the family, ate well ... we couldn't be seen. We flew in a circle. It was fantastic. And then he went to Paris!"
Klopp was fighting an uphill battle. Mbappé's heart had always been set on returning to his hometown club.
"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 appealing,'" Mbappé would explain.
"I told him, 'Whatever decision I make is going to be a good one because we are talking about some of the biggest clubs in the world.'
"It's a funny story. But in the end I chose to go to PSG because for me, born and raised in Paris, there was no better feeling than proving I could be a star in my home town."
How Liverpool Could Have Lined Up With Kylian Mbappe
"You're a genius at football, Kylian," Mbappé's mother told him in the summer of 2017 when he joined PSG. "Aren't you going to be bored in Ligue 1?" He certainly wouldn't have been bored in the Premier League.
The period between 2017 and 2018 was the most transformative of Klopp's time at Liverpool. In just over a year, some of the shrewdest deals in modern football history elevated the Reds from fighting for Champions League qualification to lifting European trophies. However, Mbappé's potential arrival would likely have prevented the first of those landmark signings: Mohamed Salah.
After missing out on Mbappé, Liverpool turned to the far more affordable option of signing Roma's electrifying Egyptian forward. Salah would go on to cement his place among Liverpool's all-time greats, claiming every major honour available before departing as the club's third-highest scorer in history. Whether Mbappé could have matched Salah's extraordinary output remains unknown, though his time as "a star" at PSG and Real Madrid suggests he may have found it difficult to replicate the relentless work rate that was so central to Klopp's system.
Had Mbappé arrived for such a record-breaking fee in 2017, Liverpool's capacity to complete their other key signings may well have been compromised. Philippe Coutinho's departure in January 2018 effectively funded the acquisition of Virgil van Dijk that same month, as well as Alisson the following summer. Even without Mbappé, Liverpool still claimed the Champions League and Premier League titles under Klopp, while also reaching two further European finals and finishing as top-flight runners-up on two occasions.