There are many anecdotes about Kylian Mbappé’s career. The young nugget trained at AS Bondy was close to joining Stade Malherbe de Caen or the Girondins de Bordeaux, but it was ultimately AS Monaco who won in 2013. The rest, you know it: Mbappé made his first team debut in 2015, before being transferred to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017. Yesterday, former Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs revealed in the podcast Rio Ferdinand Presents: The Debriefa new anecdote concerning the career of the current captain of the France team.
Flagship player of the Red Devils from 1991 to 2014 (168 goals scored in 963 matches), the former Welsh left winger was in the Mancunian staff between 2014 and 2016. And in 2015, a totally unexpected meeting will put Mbappé’s name on his path. “So I found myself in the south of France. I had gone for a walk in the neighboring village and was returning to the hotel. And I felt someone… you know, when you feel like someone is following you. I arrived at the hotel and suddenly I felt someone approaching me. This guy’s name is Lionel. He comes up to me and says, “Hi, my name is Lionel. I just wanted to say hello. I’m a big fan of Manchester United and a big fan of yours. But I watch a lot of youth football in France, and you definitely have to check out this player. His name is Kylian Mbappé. He plays for Monaco and I think he’s a player for Manchester United.” A few weeks later he sent me an email with all the details. »
MU was not impressed by Mbappé
What’s next? Instead of taking this Lionel for a madman and moving on, Giggs decided to talk to a member of the Mancunian staff, before going to observe the Bondynois in action with his own eyes. “I spoke to Albert about it, who was another assistant at United at the time. We went to see some youth matches with Monaco and we saw him. We were like, “Wow, what is that?” We sometimes see players who have something special, but he really looked exceptional, that was obvious. » Excited, Giggs then contacted the MU recruitment unit to recruit the young Frenchman. But what happens next will hurt fans of the Red Devils.
“We talked to the recruiting team about it. They went to see him. Someone in France went to see him and he was actually playing in Paris. Monaco played against PSG. So they went to Paris to see him. Anyway, I think a few weeks later I asked this guy, “How did it go?” He said, “Yeah, they weren’t really convinced by him, so we left it.” And that’s it. » Often mocked in recent years for having spent crazy sums (a little over a billion euros since 2020), Manchester United perhaps made one of its biggest recruitment errors eleven years ago.
