On the sidelines of the quarter-final of the World Cup between France and Morocco (2-0), Jürgen Klopp returned to his attempt to recruit Kylian Mbappé to Liverpool, at the time when the player played for AS Monaco. The former Reds coach said, for MagentaTVhaving taken a plane from Blackpool to Nice with all the Liverpool staff before the Mbappé family joined a private jet for a discreet discussion. “We circled in the sky, we talked with the family, we ate well. We weren’t allowed to be seen. It was great, but he left for Paris”confided Klopp, referring to the loan then the final transfer to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 for 180 million euros.
During his confessions, Klopp also mentioned other French targets he had followed, such as Ousmane Dembélé and Adrien Rabiot. The first had chosen to join Borussia Dortmund, while for the second, Klopp had simply “spoke with his mother” without this resulting in a transfer. Ironically, all three players started this Thursday evening against Morocco: Mbappé opened the scoring with a curling shot, then Dembélé doubled the lead with an assist from the French captain, recalling all the potential that Klopp had already identified several years earlier.
