Jurgen Klopp Finally Reveals All on Liverpool’s Bid to Sign Kylian Mbappe

Paris Saint-Germain ultimately won the race for the hottest star in world soccer in 2017.

Jürgen Klopp (left) tried to convince Kylian Mbappé to join Liverpool. | Michael Regan/FIFA/Getty Images

Former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has admitted he held secret transfer talks with Kylian Mbappé over a blockbuster move to Anfield in 2017.

Liverpool’s pursuit of Mbappé following his breakthrough at Monaco has been somewhat of a folk story over the past decade, with Klopp and the Reds widely rumored to have come closest to stopping the Frenchman from completing his move to Paris Saint-Germain.

Appearing on Magenta TV’s coverage of France’s World Cup quarterfinal victory over Morocco, Klopp revealed the great lengths to which Liverpool went trying to convince Mbappé to make the move.

“The most expensive non-transfer we [Liverpool] invested in,” Klopp recalled. “We flew from Blackpool to Nice. In Nice, the entire Mbappé 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 ... we couldn’t be seen. We flew in a circle. It was fantastic. And then he went to Paris!”

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Liverpool’s Sliding Doors Moment

Mbappé had the world in his hands when he broke through at Monaco. | Stu Forster/Getty Images

Liverpool had a unique advantage over other English suitors in pursuit of Mbappé all those years ago. His mother and primary advisor, Fayza Lamari, is a known Liverpool fan and was even on the receiving end of a wave from Klopp after Thursday’s game.

“I talked to Liverpool because it’s the favorite club of my mum, my mum loves Liverpool,” Mbappé recalled in 2022. “I don’t know why, you will have to ask her.

“It’s a good club and we met them five years ago. When I was in Monaco I met them. It’s a big club. Of course, it was between Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain in the end.”

PSG parted with a whopping €180 million (around $204 million at the time) to sign Mbappé after an initial loan deal. Liverpool, meanwhile, were left needing a new forward. Klopp wanted Julian Brandt but ultimately accepted a move for a certain Mohamed Salah from Roma instead.

Salah, of course, went on to become one of the greatest players in the history of both Liverpool and the wider Premier League over a glittering nine-year tenure that would likely not had been possible if the Reds had to commit that sort of money to sign Mbappé.

Center back Virgil van Dijk also joined the club in January 2018 in another mammoth deal worth £75 million (around $100 million at the time) but, like Salah, Liverpool would almost certainly not have been able to afford that signing six months after recruiting Mbappé. Even Andy Robertson’s £8 million switch from Hull City could have been in danger.

Whether Liverpool would have matched their heights under Klopp, or whether Mbappé would have developed into the superstar we know today had he moved to Anfield, will be debated until the end of time.

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