Kylian Mbappé's Near Move to Liverpool Revealed

Kylian Mbappé has revealed just how close he came to wearing Liverpool red as a teenager – and how his mother was desperate to see him walk out at Anfield.

Speaking to The Athletic, the France captain described the summer of 2017 as a genuine crossroads in his career. Still at Monaco and only 18, Mbappé held a private meeting with then-Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp on a jet flying over the south of France. His mother and agent, Fayza Lamari, was alongside him.

“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.”

Klopp made his pitch. Liverpool were on the rise, Klopp’s charisma was doing the rest, and Lamari was captivated by what she saw from the club. Mbappé, though, already felt the pull of home.

“I didn't listen because I wanted to play in my city, Paris. I didn't want to leave my country before I was someone,” he explained.

Lamari, however, pushed hard for Merseyside. She had travelled to Liverpool during the early stages of negotiations and was seduced by the club’s identity and the atmosphere at Anfield.

“She was like, ‘It's a wonderful club, everybody's so kind, it's a family club, a big club,’” Mbappé recalled. “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.”

Those trips only strengthened her view.

“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’,” Mbappé said. “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 has since lifted the lid on that dramatic charm offensive. Earlier this year, he told German outlet Magenta TV that the private-jet summit – a journey from Blackpool to Nice – was “the most expensive non-transfer we ever made”.

The effort, and Lamari’s enthusiasm, still weren’t enough. Mbappé chose Paris Saint-Germain, initially joining on loan for the 2017-18 season before making the move permanent the following year. He stayed in the French capital until 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 were left to imagine what might have been. Mbappé, instead, chose the weight of expectation in his own city – and backed himself to carry it.