“Farewell Paris”, “he’s coming”… Madrid is jubilant in anticipation after the announcement of Kylian Mbappé’s departure from PSG this summer, hoping that the endless soap opera linking the French striker to Real Madrid will soon end.
If the train to Real Madrid generally only passes once, as supporters and observers from the White House have repeated, Kylian Mbappé should have the right to a second ticket for the club that does it dreaming since childhood.
The Spanish press, which greeted the news as a “bombazo” (a bomb on the transfer market, Editor’s note), is categorical: if Mbappé “leaves” from PSG, it is to “come” to Madrid, as a headline for example the daily Marca.
“Real Madrid was waiting for Mbappé to take the first step. And he did it”, analyzed the leading sports newspaper in Spain, which thinks that the captain of the France team, free to engage wherever he wishes since January, will announce its decision “in the coming days.
Marca claims that the 2018 world champion has already informed Madrid leaders “that he only wanted to play for Real Madrid”.
Its competitor AS, which perhaps remembers having announced too early the arrival of the French striker in the summer of 2022, wants to be more cautious and is content with a “Farewell Paris”, specifying that Real “will keep silence as long as the two teams are involved in the Champions League.
The Madrid club, with which the Mbappé clan is currently in negotiations over his salary according to a source close to the matter, is reportedly refining the final details to definitively close a quest that has lasted for seven years.
The Iberian media have been insisting for several weeks that the financial proposal is lower than that made in 2022, with Kylian Mbappé’s entourage demanding, according to Cadena SER radio, a salary of 50 million euros gross per year and a signing bonus of 120 million.
Asked by AFP, the club with 14 Champions Leagues made no comment.
“The best player in the world”
On the side of the supporters, the euphoria is not the same as two years ago but the observation remains: Real Madrid is on the verge of offering itself the “best player in the world”, in a championship orphaned by a superstar since the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Karim Benzema.
“I would love for him to come, I like him a lot! He is an exceptional player, he is very strong and he has character,” Migdalia Colorado, a 57-year-old lawyer, told AFP.
“He’s the best player in the world, that’s indisputable. We’ve seen him play, we know what he’s capable of doing. He’s a great player,” said Luis Caceres, president of the football federation. “Peñas”, the Real supporters groups.
“But as long as I haven’t seen him sign, I won’t believe it, after what happened in 2022,” he added in reference to Mbappé’s choice to extend to PSG until ‘in 2024 with an option of one additional year, although it was insistently announced in Madrid.
The supporters’ representative warns: “Real Madrid is not PSG. In Paris everyone was at his feet. Here, he will have to do a lot to prove himself.”
“It’s a transfer that has always made me dream of. Today more than ever!” says Enrique Higueras, a 22-year-old Real fan and doctoral student in sports sciences, who may have had the scoop that the entire sports press was chasing on June 10, 2023.
In a video that went viral, he asked Real Madrid president Florentino Perez in front of a restaurant if he was going to recruit Kylian Mbappé. To which the manager replied “Yes yes. But not this year”. A sign that the French international has never ceased to be at the center of the Merengue management project.
Thursday’s announcement is “a relief” for Enrique Higueras, now “sure that he will play for Real Madrid and that he will make history”.
Even the most skeptical are just waiting to see.
