PSG hoping Mbappe is last link to Champions League success
PARIS: Paris St Germain presented Kylian Mbappe as their latest star signing, a clear statement that the club intend to take the Champions League by storm after several years of frustration since being taken over by cash-rich Qatari investors in 2011.
Coach Unai Emery is hoping Mbappe helps his team take the extra step into being truly competitive in Europe, after failing to go beyond the quarter-finals of the Champions League since QSI bought a vastly under-performing club six years ago.
Mbappe has been added to a glittering assembly of attacking talent that includes Brazil star Neymar, striker Edinson Cavani, and wingers Angel Di Maria and Julian Draxler.
In midfield, PSG boast Marco Verratti, an astute, perceptive passer, and Adrien Rabiot, a technically gifted homegrown talent.
Mbappe is on loan until the end of the season – PSG’s way of dealing with Financial Fair Play requirements – but when with the move becomes permanent next year it will
€ cost the club 180mil (RM910mil). It gives PSG unprecedented status as owning the world’s two most expensive players, with Neymar bought from Barcelona for a world record
222mil (RM1.1bil).
Uniting Neymar with one of the stars of the future – Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger recently likened Mbappe’s potential to Brazil great Pele – is a coup for PSG. They are set to play together away to Metz tomorrow.
He will likely start on the right, with Neymar darting in from the left flank and Cavani – scorer of 49 goals last season – at centre forward.
“I’m going to be surrounded by great players,” said Mbappe, who scored his first goal for France hours after his move was announced last Thursday.
“I have everything to learn and everything to prove.”
Spare a thought for last-place Metz , however, having to defend
€ against a front three costing 466mil (RM2.3bil).
Although he grew up in the Paris suburb of Bondy, Mbappe overlooked PSG as a 14-year-old and joined Monaco’s outstanding youth academy.
Four years later, it has turned him into the most sought after teenager in world football.
He formed a stunning partnership with Radamel Falcao, as master and apprentice helped Monaco win the league and reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, scoring more than 150 goals along the way.
By the end of the season, Mbappe was playing for France. In a glimpse of the future, he played up front alongside Ousmane Dembele against England in a friendly in June.
Mbappe set up the winner for the 20-year-old Dembele, who is now relegated to merely the third most expensive player in the world. He joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund in a deal that could rise to €
147mil (RM743mil) with add-ons.
Mbappe’s rise last season was even more remarkable considering he was in Monaco’s reserves until October. His father – who is also his agent – had given an interview to sports daily L’Equipe saying Monaco had to play his son, or he would leave. Monaco did well to listen.
Alongside Mbappe, Falcao regained his best form after more than two years recovering from a serious knee injury, and Monaco made the rest of European football take notice.