Kylian Mbappé wanted to play for Real Madrid since he was a child. And ever since he saw him as a child, Real Madrid was interested in him playing for them. However, their meeting, which seemed so inevitable, went through more than a decade of detours until the club published this Monday shortly before seven-thirty in the afternoon the shortest official statement in its history for the longest known signing: “Real Madrid CF and Kylian Mbappé have reached an agreement whereby he will be a Real Madrid player for the next five seasons.” 24 words dropped amid the emotional hangover of the celebrations for the 15th European Cup, which had ended less than 24 hours earlier.
By then, everything was already known, up to the time scheduled for the announcement, from the morning visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to the French national team’s concentration camp. Another great follower of the saga, even meddling in some key events. “Everything is ready? Is it announced today? “He asked her. “Tonight, tonight.” The magnetism of the most extensive football courtship kept one of the people who knew the most about him trapped, and also the rest: Madrid’s website suffered intermittent crashes in the minutes after the announcement.
Mbappé, who arrives free when his contract with Paris Saint-Germain expires on June 30, spoke on Instagram: “A dream come true. Very happy and proud to be part of the club of my dreams, Real Madrid. It’s impossible to explain how happy and excited I feel right now. I can’t wait to see you, Real Madrid fans, and thank you for your incredible support. Go Madrid!”. He accompanied the text with four images of the initial moment of the courtship, his visit to Valdebebas at the age of 14, when Zinedine Zidane showed him the facilities and Cristiano Ronaldo took a photo with him.
Then, everything seemed very clear. Like Mbappé’s words this Monday. However, it did not follow a straight line. Not at all. When in 2017 he was preparing to leave Monaco and Florentino Pérez offered him the opportunity to play alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, the Frenchman preferred Paris Saint-Germain, who paid 180 million euros for a loan with a mandatory purchase three weeks after signing him. reach 222 million to Barça for Neymar.
But the attraction remained. The official statement of the signing is the third that Madrid has dedicated to Mbappé. The other two, both longer than the signing, were denied, something very unusual for the club. In July 2018 he denied “an alleged agreement between Real Madrid CF and PSG for the player Kylian Mbappé.” In November 2023 he tried to defuse speculation “about alleged negotiations between the player Kylian Mbappé” and the club.
They never stopped wanting each other. In the summer of 2021, Madrid made a new attempt: it sent Nasser Al-Khelaifi several offers for the footballer that reached 200 million. But they never received answers.
One of the effects of the courtship was that Florentino Pérez never found a true competitor for the player. A year after the unanswered offers, he thought he already had him tied up. In 2022, when the end of the first contract was approaching, Mbappé made him believe that he would move to the Bernabéu. However, the situation took a surprising turn, and on May 21 he extended his contract, six months before the World Cup in Qatar, owner of PSG. “This Mbappé is not my Mbappé, they have confused him,” Pérez lamented.
The renewal had a catch: the player posed with Al-Khelaifi with a shirt that read “2025,” but he had only signed until 2024, with a clause that only he could activate to stay one more year. But last summer he warned that he did not want to do it, which started a war with the Qatari president, which left him out of the preseason tour and separated him from the club’s activities. “We can’t let the best player in the world go for free,” he proclaimed. He only reinstated him when he waived 80 million in bonuses in writing.
While Mbappé became entangled with Qatar, the context of the operation changed. Before 2022, it was Madrid that seemed to need Mbappé the most. But the week after the rejection he won his 14th European Cup. On Saturday he added his 15th, in an edition in which PSG once again fell by the wayside. Months before that, Florentino Pérez had made it clear to him that this time the offer would not be as generous as in 2022. The Frenchman accepted on the downside and left behind the largest contract in the history of football: the extra year that he did not activate contemplated 75 million euros in salary plus 103 million in bonuses. In return: “A dream come true,” he wrote this Monday.
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