Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappe has revealed in an interview that he had interest from Liverpool when he was at Monaco, and that he was genuinely considering joining them at the time.
Mbappe has been on an unprecedented run of interviews lately, and has been talking about the Ballon d'Or among other things in most of his interviews. In the last two days alone, there have been three interviews, the latest of which is the one with The Athletic, where he revealed his consideration for Liverpool in 2017.
He talked about how the interest was laid out to him by Jurgen Klopp, and how he ultimately decided to go to PSG instead.
He said: "I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he was explaining his project. 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. 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.”
He also revealed in the interview that his mother also wanted him to go to Liverpool, after seeing Anfield, the people at the club, and the history of it, too.
He ultimately went to Paris Saint-Germain, and then joined Real Madrid, but what if he didn't stay in France?
Kylian Mbappe would be much, much better defensively had he joined Liverpool
Playing under Jurgen Klopp in the best Liverpool of recent years would have helped Mbappe much more than staying in France.
In Paris, he was one of the superstars, and the entire project was revolving around him and Neymar at the time. He was the guy everyone looked for, and soon after, the club started signing players who complemented his style.
At Liverpool, he would have been a star, but he would also have had to press rigurously. Learning how to do that when you are 19 years old is much easier than doing it at 28, and if he had done that, it would have been instilled in his brain, and he would have come out of his time in England as a much better player without the ball.
In Klopp's teams, there is no case of if you press. You always have to, which is why Mbappe would have had to, as well.
It is also worth noting that Liverpool likely would not have made it as difficult as PSG did for him to leave to join Real Madrid. He has wanted to do that since 2021, and even if Mbappe had stayed at Liverpool for another year or two, it would have been much more seamless to do business with Liverpool than PSG.
That way, it would simply mean Real Madrid had a chance to get him to join the club a bit earlier.
The player would be much better at the things he currently lacks had he played under Klopp, and he would have come out of his time in England as a much more complete player than the one we see wear the Madrid shirt today.
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