Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid: End of an uneasy stint with PSG, French superstar set to unite with his true love

A loveless marriage would soon end. Kylian Mbappe would, potentially, unite with his true love, Real Madrid; Paris Saint- Germain would seek its true path to footballing glory. The Mbappe-PSG wedlock, despite the ingredients for a long and successful bond, even a symbolic bond of romance – the boy from the banlieue of Bondy, the city’s grimy alley, at the heart of PSG renaissance – was always forced and inorganic. That it did not end bitterly — even if it threatened to, at times — is a mini-wonder in itself.

For Mbappe, it was always Real Madrid – the love of his life. The group that fired up his imagination were always the galacticos. In his comic-strip autobiography Je M’Appelle Kylian, Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo visit him in a dream, and Zidane hands him out a sparkling-white kit of Real Madrid. He plays keepie-uppie with them. In school, when a teacher asks him about his best friends, he lists out the names Ronaldo, Zidane and Sergio Ramos. Later, in interviews, when probed on who he wants to be, it was always Ronaldo and Zidane. “If you’re French, obviously you would have grown up with [Zinedine] Zidane as your idol. After that, it was Cristiano [Ronaldo],” he would say.

But between Mbappe and his dream came PSG. The money they offered was irresistible; the vision they sold was seductive. He could be more than a galactico; he could embody the club itself, give it an identity and character; even pedigree and culture. He could be the Parisian Cruyff. His acquisition was a symbol of power and ambition for PSG. It was a statement buy — he was both the galactic and Cruyff. In the player-unveiling ceremony, Mbappe spoke glowingly about his love for Paris and his drive to guide PSG into exalted football company,