Barcelona could have already had Kylian Mbappe.
Barcelona made a huge error in judgment according to former director of the club, Javier Bordas. The ex-member of the club revealed to Goal, that the Catalan side had the opportunity to bring in Kylian Mbappe instead of Ousmane Dembele but the technical secretary had a different idea and thus they let the immensely talented and successful player slip out from their hands.
In 2017 Barcelona were left in a state of panic and confusion, Neymar had been sold to Paris Saint-Germain for a fee of 222 million euros but they were unable to find the perfect player to replace such an important position. In a panic, they bought Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool for 160 million euros and Dembele as a direct replacement for 105 million euros.
These investments have been less than satisfactory as neither of the players could live up to their high price tags. All of this could have been avoided had Josep Maria Bartomeu listened to Bordas. At the time of the Dembele transfer, Bordas informed the ex-president that they should go for Mbappe instead.
After a talk with Monaco’s President and Mbappe’s father, Bordas came to an understanding that Monaco was willing to sell Mbappe to Barcelona over PSG and that the player was also willing to join Barcelona over Real Madrid as Madrid at that time had Ronaldo, Gareth Bale as well as Karim Benzema.
“The president of Monaco preferred that he signed for Barcelona so as not to reinforce PSG, a direct rival. And it could have been done for €100m”
Source Goal
However, even after receiving such a delightful offer, the technical secretary, Robert Fernandez, and sporting director, Josep Segura, decided against signing him. They preferred the Dortmund man over him and their explanation was that Dembele was more of a team player than Mbappe.
“Robert preferred Dembele and Pep Segura supported him. The explanation was that Mbappe plays for himself and Dembele plays for the team, and since a winger like Neymar had left, Robert preferred a winger more than a finisher.”
Source Goal
This was a tremendous miscalculation on their part as Dembele would go on to score just 22 goals in 82 appearances and would spend most of his time in Spain injured. Mbappe on the other hand went on to score the winning goal in the 2018 FIFA World Cup final and he also reached the finals of the UEFA Champions League last season with PSG although they lost to Bayern Munich.
All hope is not over for Barcelona however as the French Superstar has not extended his contract with PSG yet and may very well move on from the club if they cannot provide him a satisfactory contract. However, for Barca to snatch up a player like Mbappe they must immediately sort out their finances and sell off all the players who are just eating up their budget.
How different would Barca be with Mbappe instead of Dembele?
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