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Ice ages didn’t last that long.
Kylian Mbappe at Real Madrid… it’s something that has been going on for at least about a decade.
Atletico it didn’t even exist when the two began courting. Twitter was still fun (and it was called Twitter), Taylor Swift hadn’t heard of American football, and the closest thing we had to a global pandemic was watching Contagion.
It’s been a relentlessly long saga, the worst kind of transfer saga in fact, with endless posturing, incessant lies and spin and thousands and thousands of stories claiming it’s finally happening.
Well, now, once and for all, it certainly is. Mbappe will leave PSG and you should assume that next season he will play at the Bernabeu (assuming another club doesn’t have the opportunity to beat him and ends up at, say, Osasuna) and the football world can focus on talking about other things like, you know, football games.
Believe it or not, the best player in the world will not rot in PSG’s reserves. He won’t even be put on gardening leave. Instead, he will play for the club he always wanted to play for and Real Madrid will sign the player he always wanted to sign. Imagine that.
If you think it’s bad here, try living in Spain, where the coverage has been a bit like what we’d get for the death of a member of the royal family in the UK.
In recent months, since Mbappe did not choose to extend his contract until 2025, things have gotten wild. On TV and radio, whether Real Madrid wins or loses matches, whether Jude Bellingham scores or not, whether Carlo Ancelotti stays as manager or leaves, Mbappe’s news prevails over all.
Don’t worry, the saga is almost over (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Ancelotti will regularly face questions about Mbappe in press conferences, which you would expect. But Real Madrid players, Javier Tebas (the La Liga president), even Xavi and Joan Laporta at Barcelona, were all asked about their opinions on Mbappe. Honestly, who cares? Apart from TV producers who have to satisfy an insatiable need for 24/7 football coverage.
Why would anyone want to know what Laporta thinks about another club buying another player? Just ask Nick Knowles what he thinks about the UK falling back into recession while you’re at it. It is useless until the point of total saturation, a stage we reached with this on/off move years ago.
In Spain, the front pages have been dominated by Mbappe for years, focusing relentlessly on the “decision”.
“Mbappe will want to play for Real Madrid,” shouted a Marca headline in April 2020. Presumably “in 2024” was written in small print.
“Mbappe makes the move” followed in September of that year, hinting that he was on his way to Madrid. Presumably only on holiday.
“The match of the summer” was last year. Maybe they meant the Ashes.
There was also a saga within a saga, with Real Madrid feeling betrayed by Mbappe when he chose to sign his latest extension with PSG. Real fans have said they would not forgive Mbappe… for choosing to stay with his current employers. Grow.
There were also journalists. Mbappe’s decision to stay in Paris has been called “the biggest mistake of his career”; even if he won the Champions League and another World Cup, it wouldn’t be enough. Oh, and the fact that he wanted to stay in the fifth best league in the world indicated as much “he has a very low opinion of himself”.
Mbappe commits his future to PSG in 2022 for at least another couple of years (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
However, it seems like a very typical Real Madrid thing; pure indignation at any player in the world who dares to reject them. It’s a very special kind of attitude, one that has fueled and exacerbated the dullest soap opera plot since Ian Beale’s weight loss difficulties on Eastenders.
There has never been a time when it didn’t look like Mbappe would be leaving for Real Madrid soon. It was always when, not if, even when he tweeted “LIES” about a report that he wanted to join Real last summer. “I have already said that I will continue at PSG where I am very happy,” he added, mimicking David Brent’s long nose.
To be honest, we To say it’s a done deal, but without a doubt we should be prepared for the next chapter. Which club will Mbappe join now that he has confirmed that he will leave PSG? Minutes after today’s news, a odds comparison site sent an email (so hastily that the email subject line incorrectly read “Kylian Mbappe to leave Real in summer 2024”) stating that there was an “implied 83.3% chance” that Mbappé had left for Madrid, but there was also a 3.8% chance that he could go to Barcelona, a move that would involve more leverage from shot of an octopus running towards a train station.
But for now it seems like it’s finally over. And when we see Mbappe, finally, holding up his famous all-white kit, we will all be relieved. Unless it’s Leeds United over a PSG Bosman in 2034.
(Top photo: Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
