The chapter closes for Kylian Mbappé. Three days after the enormous disappointment of elimination at the gates of the Champions League final, the captain of the France team finally formalized his departure from PSG on Friday, putting an end to a seven-year adventure in the capital before starting another in Spain where Real Madrid awaits him.
“It’s my last year at Paris SG”
Kylian Mbappé’s announcement, made on social networks, is not really a surprise. As early as February, a source close to the matter told AFP that the superstar had informed his managers that he would not renew his lease in Paris, which began in 2017. All that was missing was the player’s word to end it for good. good with this false suspense, which consumed the end of the club’s season, until this disillusionment against Borussia Dortmund in C1.
“It’s my last year at Paris SG, I’m not going to extend and I’m going to end my adventure in a few weeks, I’m going to play my last match at the Parc des Princes on Sunday” (in the league against Toulouse, editor’s note), announced the 25 year old player. The Mbappé page is therefore definitively turned, even if there are still three days of Ligue 1 to play – PSG has a match late – before a Coupe de France final against Lyon, on May 25 in Lille.
Despite a final in 2020, “Kyks” will not have won the famous “big ears cup”, which has haunted the Qatari leaders since their takeover of the club in 2011, and will have been generally quite disappointing during the major meetings in C1 , notably during this final in 2020 and the double confrontation against Dortmund this year.
Crazy statistics
But the 25-year-old leaves leaving a statistics line which will be very difficult to beat, with the status of top scorer in the history of PSG (287 goals, pending the four matches which remain to be played with Paris) and six French championship titles. The void left by Mbappé will be immense despite his repeated failures in the most prestigious of the European Cups and management will now have the difficult task of replacing him with one or more strong elements, making the summer transfer window crucial.
The French striker will now be able to concentrate on the Euro, which begins for the Blues on June 17 in Düsseldorf against Austria, and try to finish in style a winding exercise, during which he still has found the net 43 times, in all competitions.
Last eventful season
His last Parisian season was indeed very eventful with being sidelined in the summer of 2023, after his refusal to activate an option in his contract allowing him to stay until 2025, strained relations with the coach Luis Enrique and increasingly reduced playing time on the national scene since February and the internal announcement of his departure.
The Blues will therefore allow him to find a more favorable environment by going for the only trophy he is missing with the French team while trying to consolidate his positions in the race for the Ballon d’Or. It will then be time for him to prepare for his very probable arrival at Real Madrid, the club which has made him dream since his childhood and which he failed on numerous occasions during his career. The reception should be grandiose, commensurate with the talent of this extraordinary player whose long stay in Paris will inevitably leave PSG fans with a taste of unfinished business on a European level.