For more than ten years, Kylian Mbappé has been the subject of repeated interest of Real Madrid. In the end Los Blancos got their husband in the summer of 2024, but they lost another star almost five years earlier.
In 2019, when Mbappé started thinking about a relocation of Paris, the French party tried to launch a relations with a deal for Vinícius Junior.
At the time, the PSG hierarchy was said to be of the opinion that Neymar was the most important player for the team and they considered using Mbappé to lure Vinícius to the French capital. PSG sports director Leonardo was very enthusiastic about the deal. He hoped that PSG Vinícius and a considerable amount of cash in exchange for Mbappé could get.
The then PSG chef regarded Vinícius as 'a future world star' at a time when he had not yet exploded in global consciousness. Five years on Vinícius and Mbappé are about the same, with the Brazilian who keeps two Champions League titles to his name with Real Madrid.
But even then, Florentino Pérez, who knew the potential first hand of the attacker, was extremely reluctant to renounce Vinícius and the negotiations never progressed. Moreover, Qatar, especially Khelaïfi, was reportedly against one of the project pillars of the project, Mbappé.
A budding star in 2019, Vinícius hit every door and PSG remained interested in signing him past that point, but there was never a concrete offer. The push from within PSG to exchange Mbappé for Vinícius came from Leonardo, who publicly said about Mbappé: “We will sell it, but under our conditions.”
Mbappé, however, renewed his contract in 2022 and Leonardo left the club, so that every real possibility of a trade in Mbappé-Vinícius was terminated. His successor, Luis Campos, did not deny that he was interested in Vinícius at the time, but at that time the star of Vinícius rose at such a level that he was considered absolutely central to Real Madrid.
The landscape has shifted considerably since those first rumors in 2019. PSG have now been reached the Champions League holders, paradoxically without Kylian Mbappé, and they are confronted with Real Madrid on Wednesday in a competition to color how World Soccer continues. If the PSG can add the Club World Cup to their recent Champions League triumph, they will have shown that they did not need Mbappé nor Vinícius to get to the top table of the game.
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