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Mbappé responds: Did he regret it after PSG won the Champions League following his departure?

Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid’s star, confirmed that he does not regret leaving his former club Paris Saint-Germain, which won the UEFA Champions League title the following year.

Despite winning major titles in his career—most notably the World Cup—Mbappé has not yet won the “big-eared” trophy, despite posting remarkable individual numbers in the continental competition.

Mbappé played seven seasons with Paris Saint-Germain from 2017 to 2024, but the team was unable to win the Champions League. The year after he left, the French giants captured the title for the first time in their history.

Meanwhile, Mbappé failed to win the continental title with Real Madrid in his first season, and he is looking to break his jinx this season. The Royal Club has reached the quarter-finals and will face Bayern Munich later this March.

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  • I reached the end of the story.

    Mbappé said, in remarks on “The Bridge” podcast, carried by the Spanish newspaper “Mundo Deportivo,” “If I had left earlier and the team had won, maybe I would still have some bitterness.”

    He added, “But when I left, I felt I had reached the end of the story: seven years, during which I did everything, and there was no longer any justification to keep going.”

    The French star continued, “We reached the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final… and even in my last season we played against Dortmund and lost, but it’s a match that if I played 500 times, I would win it 499.”

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  • Senior coach

    When asked about his former coach Luis Enrique, he replied, "He is a great coach who says what he thinks frankly. Unfortunately, his time with me coincided with my final year at Paris Saint-Germain, and my last season was like a roller-coaster ride full of ups and downs."

    Mbappé explained, "I couldn’t really enjoy working with him. In the first month I was left out of the plans, and after I made the decision to leave, I barely played in the league during the last four months. I only enjoyed it as a football fan and from a tactical perspective, because I love the game. But in my situation at the time, I couldn’t truly enjoy it. He is a coach with great knowledge of football."

  • Zidane, then Ronaldo

    When asked about his role model in football, the French striker revealed: "My first role model was (Zinedine) Zidane, then Cristiano Ronaldo came after him."

    He continued: "As a striker, Cristiano has shown every possible form, because he has multiple versions of himself and is good at doing everything."

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  • Messi’s accuracy

    As for Lionel Messi, he said: “It’s crazy… you can’t compare him to Neymar. Messi does everything perfectly.”

    Mbappé went on: “I’ll tell you about a situation: we were training on finishing attacks in Paris. Neymar and I were the best—we scored 6 or 7 goals out of 10. But he took 9 shots and scored 9 goals that were exactly identical, all with the same precision. I was looking at the goalkeeper as if to say, ‘Don’t you see what’s happening?’ It’s excessive.”

  • The easiest position on the field

    Mbappé was asked, “What is the easiest position in football?”, and he replied, “In my opinion, it’s centre-back.”

    The Real Madrid star explained his answer, saying, “You’re protected from all directions, and you can even play in a back three.”

    He concluded, “It’s the only position where you see players aged 40 who are still playing in Europe at the highest level. As for a striker at that age, he’d be finished.”