Real Madrid: Assuming Kylian Mbappe will sign is a dangerous game

Real Madrid’s top transfer target, Kylian Mbappe, is in the Champions League Final. Madridistas cannot assume they will sign the forward.

For just about a year, Real Madrid fans have been thinking about a future with Kylian Mbappe. The club has placed him at the top of their wishlist but have pursued him slowly, knowing his contract runs out in 2022 and knowing that they cannot jeopardize their relationship with PSG. The Ligue 1 club, as Barcelona found out when they tried to sign Barcelona, plays soft with nobody.

Mbappe is still the prime target for the 2021 summer transfer window, as has been planned, even with the financial crisis hitting Los Blancos. The club is even rumored to be looking to raise nearly 200 million euros and prioritize sales this summer in order to afford Mbappe.

But as optimistic as Madridistas are and as much as the club seems to be pushing towards Mbappe, who grew up a Real Madrid and Zinedine Zidane fan, fans cannot get ahead of themselves. The hard truth is that Mbappe has as many reasons to stay in PSG as he does to leave for Real Madrid.

Let’s look at the facts. Mbappe is from Paris, and PSG is his hometown team. He has the potential to build a special connection with this club and its fans in a way that could be somewhat replicated but maybe not fully realized in Madrid.

PSG can pay Mbappe as much, if not more than, Real Madrid. They have already submitted lucrative extension offer after lucrative extension offer in the hopes that he’ll sign and avoid going to Real. To this point, Mbappe has resisted.

PSG can offer Kylian Mbappe as much as Real Madrid

But that’s the key. “To this point”. A lot has changed in the last few months, though. Despite Real’s best efforts, there is no guarantee they can pay Mbappe due to the COVID-19 financial crisis, even if they raise funds. The crisis will hit them much, much harder than PSG, as big of a club as Real is.

There’s another important matter, and that’s the recent success of PSG in the Champions League. One school of thought says that Mbappe would be satisfied if PSG win the Champions League and move on to the next challenge at Real Madrid. Because there’s this idea that if he accomplishes what he accomplishes at PSG in Ligue 1, it’s not as big of a deal as what he’d accomplish at Real. Except, you know, there were more Ligue 1 teams in the final four of the Champions League than La Liga teams…

Playing with Neymar, Angel Di Maria, Mauro Icardi, and other superstars at PSG is as much of a draw as playing with the superstars at Real Madrid like Sergio Ramos and Eden Hazard. And the draw of playing with Neymar, the current best player in the world, before overtaking him in a few years is certainly huge. They are a dynamic duo, capable of winning Champions League after Champions League. If Mbappe wins one, he’d surely be hungry to win more at PSG and prove the success of the project was no fluke brought about by changed format.

You can make pro-Real Madrid arguments, make no mistake. But these pro-PSG arguments offer examples of how easy it is for Kylian Mbappe to stay with a team that is highly successful and with a team he’s familiar with in so many ways.

Real Madrid fans cannot get arrogant. They cannot assume Mbappe will join Los Blancos or even that the team can sign him in 2021 or 2022. Keep him at the top of the wishlist, yes, but remember that it is a wishlist. We cannot predict what is best for an individual, or what their though process will be.

And no club, no matter how big they are, can put all their eggs in one unknown basket. So keep monitoring and thinking of Jadon Sancho, Erling Haaland, and other forwards for 2021 and 2022 beyond Mbappe. Assumptions are unwise.