Kylian Mbappé's Liverpool Moment: The Jet and Klopp's Gamble

Kylian Mbappé still remembers the moment Liverpool almost became his home.

Back in 2017, he was the most coveted teenager in Europe, tearing up Ligue 1 with Monaco and forcing the continent’s giants into a race for his signature. Real Madrid circled. Paris Saint-Germain were desperate to bring the Paris-born prodigy back to his city. And then there was Liverpool, pushing harder than most people ever knew.

The jet, the pitch, and Klopp’s gamble

Jurgen Klopp did not settle for a phone call.

Liverpool’s then-manager arranged a clandestine meeting on a five-room private jet, a flying boardroom designed for one purpose: convince Mbappé that Anfield was where his future should unfold.

Mbappé has now lifted the lid on just how serious those talks became. Speaking to The Athletic, he recalled the surreal scene as the jet looped in the sky while Klopp laid out his vision.

"I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he was explaining his project," Mbappé said. He stopped Klopp mid-pitch. "You don't need to convince me. You're Jurgen Klopp, it's Liverpool, a great club, so of course if I'm here, I have some interest. But I have other things, other projects, that are also good."

The message was clear: Liverpool were in the race. They were not alone.

"I said to him, 'Whatever decision I take is going to be a good decision because we are talking about some of the biggest clubs in the world.' It's a funny story."

Funny now. At the time, it was deadly serious. Liverpool were going all out for a generational talent.

A mother who fell for Anfield

The strongest push towards Merseyside did not come from Klopp, or from the club’s hierarchy. It came from Mbappé’s mother.

While negotiations were in their early stages, she flew to England on her own. No entourage. No fanfare. Just a mother doing her homework on a possible new life for her son.

"She went to the stadium, she met the people," Mbappé recalled. "She was like, 'It's a wonderful club, everybody's so kind, it's a family club, a big club.' She went to Anfield and fell in love with it."

She soaked in the city, sat in the stands, felt the noise. And she came back with a clear verdict.

"All the time we were talking. 'What do you think, Mum?' She'd say, 'For me, you have to go to Liverpool.' I said, 'OK, OK, OK!'" he remembered, laughing. Klopp’s presence only strengthened the temptation. "Jurgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him."

For a moment, Liverpool looked like more than just an option. They looked like the choice.

The decision: Paris over Merseyside

Then came the crossroads.

Liverpool had rolled out the red carpet, chartered the jet, sold the project, won over the family. But they could not change one thing: Mbappé’s roots.

In the end, the pull of home proved too strong. "I took the decision to go to PSG because for me, born and raised in Paris, there was no better feeling than to show I could be a star in my home town," he said.

Liverpool were left with what-ifs. PSG got their man.

The move began as a loan from Monaco before being made permanent for €180 million, a fee that underlined just how high the stakes had been in that jet circling above the clouds. It was one of the defining transfers of the modern era, and it did not land in the Premier League.

From near-miss to global domination

What followed in Paris has been well documented. Mbappé became the face of PSG’s project, stacking domestic trophies and rewriting records in the French capital.

On the international stage, he exploded into superstardom. He won the World Cup with France in 2018 as a teenager, announcing himself on the biggest stage with a fearlessness that matched the hype. The story didn’t stop there. By the 2026 World Cup, he had gone past Miroslav Klose and Lionel Messi to become the tournament’s all-time leading scorer, even though France fell in the semifinals to eventual champions Spain.

Every goal, every record, made that Liverpool near-miss feel even bigger in hindsight. Anfield could only watch from afar as the player they almost signed became one of the defining footballers of his generation.

The Madrid chapter begins

Now the story has moved again.

In 2024, Mbappé finally left France and completed his long-awaited switch to Real Madrid, the club long linked with his destiny. The boy from Paris, who once circled in a jet listening to Klopp outline a future in red, now walks out at the Bernabéu in white.

Liverpool, under a new era after Klopp, can only wonder how different their recent history might look if that private jet had led to a signature instead of a story.