Ice ages have not lasted this long.
Kylian Mbappe joins Real Madrid… something that’s been going on for about a decade at least.
Competitor When the two began courting each other, the concept didn’t even exist. Twitter is still fun (and called Twitter), Taylor Swift hasn’t heard of American football, and the closest thing we have to a global pandemic is watching Contagion.
It’s been a relentlessly long saga, in fact the worst transfer saga yet, filled with endless posturing, constant lies and falsehoods, and thousands of stories claiming it was finally happening.
Well now, once and for all, indeed. Kylian Mbappe will leave PSG and you have to assume he will play at the Bernabeu next season (assuming no other club has a chance to beat them and he ends up at Osasuna) while the football world can focus on talking about other things, For example, a football match.
Believe it or not, the best players in the world aren’t rotting away in PSG’s reserves. He won’t be asked to take gardening leave either. Instead, he will play for the club he wants to play for forever, and Real Madrid will sign the player they want to sign forever. Picture this.
If you think we’re having a bad time here, try living in Spain where the coverage is similar to the coverage we get of the deaths of members of the British royal family.
Things have become extremely heated in recent months as Mbappe did not choose to extend his contract until 2025. On TV and radio, whether Real Madrid win or lose, whether Jude Bellingham scores or not, whether Carlo Ancelotti stays on as head coach or leaves, Mbappe’s news is top of mind. .
Don’t worry, the saga is coming to an end (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
Ancelotti often faces questions about Mbappe in press conferences, as you would expect. But Real Madrid players, Javier Tebas (President of La Liga), and even Barcelona’s Xavi and Laporta have all been asked what they think of Mbappe. Honestly, who cares? Except for TV producers who need to satisfy an insatiable demand for 24/7 rolling football coverage.
Why would anyone want to know what Laporta thinks about another club signing another player? Just ask Nick Knowles what he thinks about the UK slipping back into recession. There’s no point in getting to the point of complete saturation, we got to that stage a long time ago with this on/off shift.
Kylian Mbappe has dominated Spanish headlines for years, with the focus always on the “decision”.
In April 2020, a headline in Marca screamed: “Mbappe will want to play for Real Madrid.” The small print probably read “2024.”
In September of the same year, “Mbappe took the first step”, suggesting that he was on his way to Madrid. I guess he just had a vacation.
The “summer game” was last year. Maybe they were referring to ashes.
There is even a legend among legends, Real Madrid felt betrayed when Kylian Mbappe chose to renew his contract with Paris Saint-Germain. Madrid fans say they will not forgive Mbappe… for choosing to stay with his current employer. grow up.
Journalists also got involved. Mbappe’s decision to stay in Paris has been called “the biggest mistake of his career”; even if he won the Champions League and another World Cup, it wasn’t enough. Oh, and the fact that he wants to stay in the fifth-best league in the world shows “that he has very little respect for himself.”
Mbappe will commit his future to PSG in 2022, at least for a few more years (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
It does feel like Real Madrid’s style, though. Strong outrage against any player in the world who dares to reject them. It’s a very particular attitude that fuels and exacerbates the most boring soap storyline since Ian Beale’s weight loss struggle in EastEnders.
Mbappe always seemed to be heading to Real Madrid in the near future. It’s always been ‘when’, not ‘if’ – even when he tweeted a ‘lie’ last summer about reports he wanted to join Real Madrid. “I already said I would stay at PSG and I’m very happy,” he added while doing a long-nosed pantomime of David Brunt.
To be honest, we explain Things are set in stone, but there’s no doubt we should be ready for the next chapter. Now that Mbappe has confirmed his departure from Paris Saint-Germain, which club will he join? Within minutes of today’s news, an odds comparison website sent out an email (so quickly that the email subject was misread as “Kylian Mbappe to leave Real Madrid in the summer of 2024” ), saying “the implied probability is 83.3%” that Mbappe will go to Madrid, but he also has a 3.8% chance of going to Barcelona, a move that requires more leverage than an octopus running a train station.
But now, it feels like it’s finally over. We’ll all breathe a sigh of relief when we finally see Mbappe holding up that famous all-white jersey. Unless Leeds United brings Bosman from Paris Saint-Germain in 2034.
(Top photo: Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
