Kylian Mbappé's Near Transfer to Liverpool Revealed

Kylian Mbappé has admitted he came close to joining Liverpool as a teenager, with his mother desperate to see him walk out at Anfield before his career exploded in Paris.

Speaking to The Athletic, the France captain revealed that in the summer of 2017 he held a private meeting with then-Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp on a jet flying over the south of France. Mbappé was 18, still at Monaco, and standing on the brink of a defining decision.

His mother and agent, Fayza Lamari, was on board too. She did not hide where she wanted her son to go.

"It was while I was playing in Monaco. I had to take a decision. And yes, I was close to Liverpool," Mbappé said. "My mum was a big fan of Jurgen Klopp and the favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there."

The teenager, though, had his heart set on something else.

"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. "But yes, my mum was always saying 'Liverpool – you're going to be there, playing at Anfield, it's going to be insane for you.' I was like, 'OK!'"

Lamari did more than talk. She travelled to Liverpool early in the process, immersing herself in the club and the city as negotiations rumbled in the background.

He remembers how captivated she became.

"She was like, 'It's a wonderful club, everybody's so kind, it's a family club, a big club,'" Mbappé said. "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 sparked constant conversations at home.

"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'. I said, 'OK, OK, OK!' because Jurgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him."

Klopp later lifted the lid on that meeting in his own way. Earlier this year, he told German outlet Magenta TV that the jet journey – from Blackpool to Nice – turned into "the most expensive non-transfer we ever made."

The charm offensive, and Lamari’s enthusiasm, still were not enough. When the moment came, Mbappé chose Paris Saint-Germain, initially joining on loan for the 2017-18 season before making the move permanent a year later. He stayed in his home city until his 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 with a story of what might have been. Mbappé, instead, wrote his legend under the lights of Paris before finally heading for Madrid.