(Madrid) “Farewell Paris”, “he is coming”… Madrid is jubilant in anticipation after the announcement of Kylian Mbappé’s departure from PSG this summer, hoping that the endless soap opera linking the French striker to Real Madrid will soon end.
If the train to Real Madrid generally only passes once, as supporters and observers from the White House have repeated, Kylian Mbappé should have the right to a second ticket for the club that dreamed of since childhood.
The Spanish press, which welcomed the news as a “bombazo” (a bomb on the transfer market, editor’s note), is categorical: if Mbappé “leaves” PSG, it is to “come” to Madrid, as a title for example the daily Marca.
“Real Madrid was waiting for Mbappé to make the first move. And he did it,” analyzed the leading sports newspaper in Spain, which believes that the captain of the French team, free to engage wherever he wishes since January, will announce his decision “in the coming days “.
Negotiations in progress
Marca claims that the 2018 world champion has already informed Madrid leaders “that he only wanted to play for Real Madrid”.
Its competitor AS, which perhaps remembers having announced too early the arrival of the French striker in the summer of 2022, wants to be more cautious and is content with a “Farewell Paris”, specifying that Real “will keep silence as long as the two teams are involved in the Champions League.
The Madrid club, with which the Mbappé clan is currently in negotiations over his salary according to a source close to the matter, is reportedly refining the final details to definitively close a quest that has lasted for seven years.
The Iberian media have been insisting for several weeks that the financial proposal is lower than that made in 2022, with Kylian Mbappé’s entourage demanding, according to Cadena SER radio, a salary of 50 million euros ($72 million) gross per year and a bonus. upon signing 120 million ($174 million).
Asked by AFP, the club with 14 Champions Leagues made no comment.
” The best player in the world “
On the side of the supporters, the euphoria is not the same as two years ago, but the observation remains: Real Madrid is on the verge of offering itself the “best player in the world”, in a championship orphaned by a superstar since the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Karim Benzema.
“I would love for him to come, I love him very much!” He is an exceptional player, he is very strong and he has character,” Migdalia Colorado, a 57-year-old lawyer, told AFP.
“He’s the best player in the world, that’s indisputable. We have seen him play, we know what he is capable of doing. He’s a great player,” said Luis Caceres, president of the Peñas federation, the Real supporters’ groups.
“But as long as I haven’t seen him sign, I won’t believe it, after what happened in 2022,” he added in reference to Mbappé’s choice to extend to PSG until ‘in 2024 with an option of one additional year, although it was insistently announced in Madrid.
The supporters’ representative warns: “Real Madrid is not PSG. In Paris everyone was at his feet. Here, he will have to do a lot to prove himself.”
“It’s a transfer that has always made me dream of. Today more than ever! », Says Enrique Higueras, a 22-year-old Real supporter and doctoral student in sports sciences, who perhaps had the scoop that all the sports press was chasing on June 10, 2023.
In a video that went viral, he asked Real Madrid president Florentino Perez in front of a restaurant if he was going to recruit Kylian Mbappé. To which the leader replied: “Yes yes. But not this year.” A sign that the French international has never ceased to be at the center of the Merengue management project.
Thursday’s announcement is “a relief” for Enrique Higueras, now “sure that he will play for Real Madrid and that he will make history”.
Even the most skeptical are just waiting to see.