Mbappe: I told Dembele not to think twice about joining Barcelona
Posted Friday, September 08, 2017 by Marca.com
By moving from Monaco to Paris Saint-Germain for 180 million euros, Kylian Mbappe becomes the second most expensive player in the world and he also had some advice for Ousmane Dembele, the start of one of this summer's other major transfers.
Dembele joined Barcelona from Borussia Dortmund for a fee of 105m euros, plus add-ons, coming in to replace Neymar who joined PSG shortly before Mbappe.
"I gave him my opinion," Mbappe told Daily Telegraph in relation to the advice he gave to his countryman.
"I told him not to think twice because it is a great opportunity for him.
"He can become a better player playing alongside Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.
"He already has incredible talent, but he can make another step up."
In addition, Mbappe has also revealed that he could have joined Arsenal before he ended up at the Parc des Princes.
"Yes, I met with Arsene Wenger," he continued.
"He is a great coach with a great reputation in France, and he knows how to work with young players.
"He compared me to Pele, the king of football, which is really incredible."
Nevertheless, the opportunity to return home to Paris appeared to be too good to turn down.
"We weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of all the clubs, but my family told me it had to be my decision and one I needed to make," he followed on.
"It also had to be a long-term decision.
"So it was up to me and I decided [to join PSG] in order to develop."
That was not the original plan for Mbappe, however, as he wanted to stay at Monaco before changing his mind later in the window.
"When I started talking to clubs, I told them that my first choice was to stay at Monaco," he said.
"But something changed and I decided to leave.
"PSG was the only option for me - it's like coming home.
"As a child, I grew up going to the stadium."
It could have been different for the Parisian, with Chelsea having tried their best to lure the forward to Stamford Bridge at 11 years of age.
"Chelsea was the first great club I visited," Mbappe stated.
"It was a great discovery; I was impressed by the culture of work and the mentality.
"This visit helped my growth a lot.
"We played against Charlton [in a friendly] and met players from the first team like Didier Drogba and Florent Malouda."
Mbappe could line up alongside Neymar and co. for the first time on Saturday night as PSG travel to Metz.
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