Kylian Mbappé, the 26-year-old striker for Real Madrid and the French national team, has been caught in the cruel irony of football. It was the season after his departure from Paris Saint-Germain, in the summer of 2024, that the club finally won its first Champions League title. The player, who spent seven years in the French capital, was asked to comment on this during an interview with L’Équipe.
Mbappé: “You could think I’m a real unlucky guy!”
“Of course, if you look at it that way, superficially, you could think I’m a real unlucky guy (laughs). PSG strengthened their squad, they were always getting closer… We lost to Dortmund after having 40 shots, eight of them hitting the woodwork…
I still can’t explain to you how we didn’t qualify, honestly. At PSG, it was Luis Enrique’s second season, the team didn’t change, you strengthened the squad well with a great transfer window, with players like Pacho…
Mbappé: “I could have gone there earlier…”
I have friends in the team, and those who know me know that friendship is important to me. You can’t speak ill of a team where your friends are, even if it wasn’t PSG. My story there was over, and I left without any regrets.
Even the things I did wrong are part of my story. When I was playing there, we were very close to winning, we reached two semi-finals. We didn’t win, and my time there was over. Real Madrid called me, it had always been my dream, I could have gone there earlier…”
Of course, Mbappé won’t go into tactical details or performance analysis; that’s a subject that has already been discussed extensively anyway. Even if there are still some skeptics. We could say they were unlucky, to some extent, with several campaigns ending narrowly, particularly their last one with those incredible matches against Dortmund.
However, there was definite collective progress last year, with an impressive display of character and efforts that clearly made the difference. That might have been the key to winning. Like having an Ousmane Dembélé at the peak of his career form. Mbappé’s departure also pushed the other players to take on more responsibility, and they did so very well.
It’s worth noting that there still hasn’t been any clear self-reflection from Mbappé; we hope he did it privately in order to take his game to the next level. The reminder that he could have gone to Real Madrid wasn’t necessary. There’s a feeling that the striker is trying to reassert that he was almost being generous with PSG by staying so long. Or at least, that he made this “effort” for the club. It’s not particularly flattering, and a bit clumsy, especially since the Champions League was won precisely after his departure.
