Kylian Mbappe has addressed the media for the first time since confirming he’ll be leaving PSG for Real Madrid this summer. And just like Lionel Messi did once he joined Inter Miami, the Frenchman took a shot at his former club.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday ahead of Euro 2024 with France, Mbappe suggested the club’s brass made life difficult for him in his last season at the Parc des Princes.
“PSG told me I will not play violently. Luis Enrique and Campos saved me. This is the truth,” Mbappe said. “Without them I wouldn’t have seen the field again, that’s the truth. And that’s why I’ve always been so thankful to the coach and the sporting director.”
Mbappe didn’t mention PSG president Nasser Al Khelaifi, but he didn’t need to. With these comments, it’s safe to assume he is not in good terms with the PSG chairman.
However, Mbappe didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire: “It would be a shame if I said I was unhappy at PSG because I now have my new club. But there were people and things that made me unhappy.”
When Messi also took a jab at PSG after leaving for nothing
Mbappe’s comments against Paris Saint-Germain may remind about Messi’s feelings towards the Ligue 1 side after two complicated years in the French capital. In his first press conference as an Inter Miami player last year, the Argentine star didn’t hide how he really felt about his time in Paris.
“As I said at the time, my departure to Paris was not something I wanted, it was not something I wanted to leave Barcelona and, so to speak, it was from one day to the next. And, well, I also had to get used to a place that was totally different from where I had been living all my life, both in terms of the city and in a sporting sense, and, well, it was difficult, but the opposite of what is happening to me now here [in Miami],” Messi said in August 2023.