Kylian Mbappé Reveals Close Liverpool Move in 2016

Kylian Mbappé has lifted the lid on just how close he came to becoming a Liverpool player in 2016 – and how he did it by going against his mother’s wishes.

Back then he was an 18-year-old phenomenon at Monaco, tearing through Ligue 1 and Europe. Liverpool saw the future early and moved. Hard.

Mbappé, now a Real Madrid forward and captain of France, has revealed that the Reds pushed to sign him before Paris Saint-Germain swooped, and that his mother was completely sold on the idea of Anfield.

“I was close to [joining] Liverpool. The favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there,” he told the Athletic, explaining that she was a “big fan” of Jürgen Klopp and the club.

He ignored her.

“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.”

For his mother, the vision was clear: her son in red, under the lights, in front of the Kop.

“‘Liverpool – you’re going to be there, playing at Anfield, it’s going to be insane for you,’” he recalled her telling him.

She did more than talk. Mbappé says his mother actually travelled to Merseyside as the “first step” in negotiations. She wanted to see it, feel it, test if the dream matched reality.

“She went to the city, the stadium, she met the people. She was like, ‘it’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club’,” Mbappé said.

Then came Anfield. That sealed it for her.

“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.”

While Mbappé weighed up his options, Liverpool were doing everything they could behind the scenes. Klopp, speaking years later on Magenta TV during the 2026 World Cup, detailed the extraordinary lengths the club went to.

He described how Liverpool arranged a flight from Blackpool to Nice, where “the entire Mbappe family boarded a private jet with five rooms or something”.

“We really went all out. Then we flew around in a circle, talked with the family, ate good food,” Klopp said.

The idea was discretion. No photos, no leaks, no drama. Just a manager, a project and a teenage superstar family being courted above the clouds.

“We flew in a circle. It was fantastic. And then he went to Paris,” Klopp added, the punchline landing with the kind of resigned humour only football can produce.

For Mbappé, it’s a story he can laugh about now.

“It’s a funny story,” he said.

But the decision at the heart of it was anything but casual. He chose PSG, and he chose home.

“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 hometown.”

The move came first as a loan from Monaco, with an option to buy for 180m euros (£165.7m). PSG triggered it, and the rest is already carved into the club’s history. Seven years in Paris, a record goal scorer, a global icon.

Only in 2024 did he finally leave for Real Madrid, closing one epic chapter and starting another.

And somewhere in Liverpool, and in one Anfield-obsessed living room in particular, there will always be that lingering thought: what if he had listened to his mum?