What a 48 hours in Madrid.

Two days after winning their 15th Champions League with a win over Borussia Dortmund and finishing first in La Liga, the years-long saga with Kylian Mbappe ended. Los Blancos officially welcomed the French star by announcing his arrival across social media. The 25-year-old Frenchman moves to Madrid after seven years with Paris Saint-Germain.

In 2022, Mbappe almost left for Spain for the first time, but PSG convinced him to stay. According to Fabrizio Romano, he signed a two-year contract extension with a player option in the 2024-2025 season. At the beginning of this past season, the striker told PSG representatives he would not extend his contract and leave the club as a free agent next summer.

Furious, the club benched him to begin the year, but he worked his way back into the squad. After the Paris season ended in the middle of May, Mbappe and Madrid ironed out the details of his contract, making his departure official on Monday. He signed a five-year deal earning just over $16 million per season and a $163 million signing bonus spread over the deal’s life.

Mbappe looks to be the missing piece in a Madrid team teeming with young talent. Four of their ten outfield players in the Champions League final are 25 years old or younger, including the striker partnership of Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo, who will move to the wings next season with Mbappe joining them.

Meanwhile, PSG is left to pick up the pieces. At the end of the 2023 season, the club had one of the best-attacking trios the world has ever seen, with Neymar, Leo Messi and Mbappe. All three are gone one year later, and little money is being recouped for their departures. The club finished first in Ligue 1 and was knocked out in the Champions League Semi-finals by Dortmund.

French phenom Kylian Mbappé, 25, had a night to remember in the Champions League last Tuesday, scoring two goals against Real Sociedad to help Paris-Saint-Germain advance to the quarterfinals of Europe’s most glorified competition in soccer.

One of those goals broke the net.

Mbappé broke down the left wing with pace on a counterattack which left only one defender to try to stop him. After some quick feet, Mbappé was able to create an opening for a shot, which he lashed across the goalkeeper and found the bottom corner in the 15th minute of the match.

Such was the power of his strike that it actually broke the netting. There have been flukey situations in soccer where the netting on a goal has been ripped before, but the amount of raw power it takes to rip a net with a ball from that distance is something rarely observed in modern European soccer. The referees were forced to pause the game while the net was repaired.

His second goal came from another break down the left side where he caught up to an over-the-top through ball and sneakily whipped the ball to the near post after opening up his body to appear as if he would curl it toward the far post. He wrong-footed goalkeeper Alejandro Remiro and effectively ended the tie 11 minutes into the second half.

After a 2-0 victory in the first leg and a 2-0 lead in the second, Mikel Merino’s goal for Sociedad late in the second half was a mere consolation as PSG advanced 4-1 on aggregate.

“We’re really happy,” Mbappé noted in a post-match press conference. “That was the objective, we wanted to qualify, but we also wanted to win. We had a game plan that was clear, and we managed to score early. We didn’t come under too much pressure, just a little at the end.”

“[Scoring goals] is what I do,” he added. “It’s what I like to do, what I can do. My job is to help the team score goals, to help offensively, defensively, and today, I did a nice job.”

Mbappé, who is reportedly leaving the club to join Real Madrid in Spain at the end of the season, now sits at the top of the charts for goals scored in the Champions League this season with six, tied with Harry Kane who also bagged a brace last Tuesday for Bayern Munich.

“He’ll score 50 goals and get 25 assists with whatever coach in whichever team. Unfortunately, in the immediate future, he won’t be here, and we have to start trying out other teammates,” PSG manager Luis Enrique noted after the game.

Erling Haaland, the leading goal scorer for Manchester City, sits a goal behind at five but will have more opportunities to catch up in the quarterfinal round. According to former Manchester United and England defender gone game analyst Rio Ferdinand though, there’s no one he’d rather build a team around in the game today than Mbappé.

“I’d pay every day to watch him train let alone play in a match because he creates things on his own. I can give him the ball at left-back and he might score. I can give him the ball anywhere on the pitch and he could create something,” Ferdinand said.

“But Mbappé’s just got that something different that would make me sit up at night and go: ‘Thank you, God.’”

French soccer star Kylian Mbappe ran to the stands to apologize after hitting a fan with a shot during warmups for the World Cup semifinal Wednesday. If the fan ever recovered, he would have seen the PSG star make up for it with a 2-0 victory over Morocco to propel France to a finals matchup with Argentina.

In a clip that has now gone viral, Mbappe leapt over a barrier to attend to the unidentified fan, who was wearing red and blue and appeared disoriented in photos after the shot reportedly hit him in the face. France’s star apologized and ensured that he was alright before completing warmups.

In the match itself, Mbappe did not score or directly assist, but his play undeniably made a difference as he pushed a torrent pace on offense throughout the game and simply overwhelmed Moroccan defenders. At 23, he will now appear in the second World Cup final of his career, having been a member of the French team that won the tournament in 2018.

Mbappe’s apology to the fan and subsequent play on the field were not his sole acts of class on the day of his semifinal match. After the game, Mbappe spoke to Moroccan player and fellow PSG player Achraf Hakimi, and the two embraced. On Twitter, Mbappe said that Hakimi should not be upset after the team “made history.”

Arguably the best player in the tournament with five goals in six games, Mbappe has led France to the cusp of a historic achievement. Since the World Cup began in 1930, only two teams have won back-to-back tournaments: Italy in 1934 and 1938 and Brazil in 1958 and 1962.

While Lionel Messi and Argentina are sure to provide a stout challenge to France on Sunday, the team led by Mbappe has been virtually unchallenged at the World Cup thus far, winning five of six games by a combined 13-5 score. Argentina’s path included a shocking loss to Saudi Arabia in the group stage and a win on penalties against Netherlands in the quarterfinal, but the team proved itself to be a championship contender in a resounding 3-0 win over Croatia in the semifinal.

Switzerland defeated the defending World Cup champions, France, in the 2020 Euros via penalty kicks on Monday.

Switzerland opened the scoring with a Haris Seferovic header and carried this 1-0 lead through halftime. A Swiss penalty kick was turned away by French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, and Karim Benzema furthered this momentum in the form of a goal to level the score at 1-1. Another goal quickly thereafter from Benzema pushed France to a 2-1 lead. Paul Pogba then struck a beautiful ball past the Swiss goalkeeper to double France’s lead and it seemed that the sluggish French start had been shrugged off.

Haris Seferovic, though, headed in his second goal of the game in the 80th minute, and another quick tally from Mario Gavranovic knotted the score at 3 apiece.

Kylian Mbappé had an extraordinary chance in extra time to send France to victory, but his in-tight shot was hammered into the side netting rather than the back of the goal. This miss, alongside no Switzerland conversions, sent the game to penalty kicks for a final decision.

Mbappé had a chance to redeem himself at the spot, but his shot was deflected away by Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer, clinching the upset victory for Switzerland.

“It’s hugely disappointing. We completely messed up our first half. We reacted in the second half but then left them space and they came back,” noted France defender Raphael Varane.

With the win, Switzerland faces perennial powerhouse Spain in the quarterfinals, who won in extra time against Croatia by a score of 5-3.

French superstar Kylian Mbappe will likely be at his current club Paris Saint Germain next season, according to reports. 

Mbappe is currently linked to several elite clubs in Europe including La Liga giant Real Madrid and current Premier League champions Liverpool. Meanwhile, PSG is negotiating a contract extension with Mbappe to keep him with the club.

Real Madrid is a likely destination for the French star as many football icons including Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario and Cristiano Ronaldo once played there. Mbappe’s former PSG teammate Jese Rodriguez told El Partidazo de COPE that Mbappe “would love to go to Real Madrid”.

“His [Mbappe] idol has always been Cristiano [Ronaldo],” Rodriguez added. “He loves Madrid and I am sure he will play there one day”. 

Regarding his future, Mbappe told Telefoot that, “We are talking with the club, to find a project. I am thinking about it because if I sign and extend my contract, it is to commit myself on the long term to PSG. And I am very happy here. I have always been very happy here.”

Mbappe was unsure about his future with PSG at one point. “If I had made my mind up today, I would have said it. It is not that I want to gain time or something. It is just that I am thinking about it,” Mbappe said. “I don’t want to extend my contract and say a year later that I want to leave because I didn’t want to sign the new deal in the first place. If I extend, it is to stay.” 

Due to the COVID-19 situation, Real Madrid is facing financial difficulties and may find it difficult to sign Mbappe because of the player’s high value and wages. The price tag for the player is reportedly over 100 million. 

PSG is reportedly very close to extending Neymar Jr.’s contract and will look to extend Mbappe’s contract as well. 

Kylian Mbappé emerged as the French national soccer team’s biggest young star, and now he is putting Sunday’s FIFA World Cup winnings to good use.

France’s Kylian Mbappe To Donate World Cup 2018 Earnings

The 19-year-old Paris St-Germain forward announced just hours after France’s 4-2 victory over Croatia that he would be donating his salary from the tournament to a French charity named Premiers de Cordee that provides free athletic training to disabled and hospitalized children who participate in sports.

According to French newspaper L’Equipe, the organization also strives to promote awareness about disabilities in businesses and schools.

“Kylian is a great person,” Sebastien Ruffin, the head of Premiers de Cordee, told French news outlet Le Parisien. “When his schedule allows it, he intervenes for us with pleasure. He has a very good [relationship] with children, he always finds the right [words] to encourage them. I sometimes even feel that [he] takes more pleasure to play with the kids than the kids themselves.”

Mbappé made history in Sunday’s World Cup final by becoming the second teenager to ever score in the tournament’s title game, after Brazilian legend Pele did it in 1958 against Sweden. Mbappé finished the World Cup with four goals and won the Best Young Player Award.

According to Sports Illustrated, the French youngster earns approximately $22,500 per game with bonuses. The magazine also reported that Mbappé would earn an additional $350,000 if France won the World Cup.