Kylian Mbappe Faces Old Club PSG As Real Madrid Eye Club World Cup Final

Last Updated:July 08, 2025, 12:12 IST

Kylian Mbappe, a World Cup winner in 2018, has scored 43 goals in 56 matches for Real Madrid across all competitions up to the end of the La Liga campaign.

Kylian Mbappe reacts after scoring a goal during Club World Cup. (AP Photo)

Kylian Mbappe is set to face Paris Saint-Germain for the first time since leaving the French club a year ago in Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid revolution, which will face its biggest test yet in Wednesday’s Club World Cup semifinal. Mbappe should be remembered as a PSG legend, having spent seven prolific seasons there and leaving as their all-time top scorer with 256 goals in 308 games.

However, his legacy was somewhat tainted by the manner of his departure, with many feeling that, during the latter half of his time in Paris, he was merely biding his time until the right moment to move to Madrid, the club he dreamed of playing for as a young boy. PSG, led by their Qatari president Nasser al-Khelaifi, were unhappy with Mbappe’s decision to run down his contract to join Real in 2024, thus denying them a transfer fee.

A bitter legal dispute has persisted between the parties, with Mbappe claiming he is owed 55 million euros ($64.4 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses from his time in Paris. The latest development occurred this week when one of Mbappe’s lawyers informed AFP that the France captain had withdrawn a complaint of moral harassment against his former employers.

This followed the Paris prosecutor’s office revealing last month that an investigation had been opened after a complaint by the player regarding his treatment by PSG in the summer of 2023. Mbappe believes he was sidelined by PSG and made to train with players the club intended to offload after he refused to agree to a new contract.

Mbappe missed a pre-season tour to Japan and the start of the subsequent campaign before eventually being reintegrated into Luis Enrique’s squad. All of this should have been behind Mbappe long ago, considering how his first season at Real has gone on a personal level.

The 26-year-old, a World Cup winner in 2018, scored 43 goals in 56 matches for his new club across all competitions up to the end of the La Liga campaign, a remarkable tally. However, Mbappe has faced frustration at the Club World Cup, not playing at all during the group stage due to a stomach bug that required hospital treatment.

In his absence, young forward Gonzalo Garcia has impressed, starting all five matches in the United States and scoring four goals. The last of those was the opener in the 3-2 quarter-final win over Borussia Dortmund at the MetLife Stadium on Saturday, but it was Mbappe who scored the decisive goal.

He came off the bench midway through the second half and scored a brilliant, acrobatic overhead kick for Real’s third of the afternoon in stoppage time.

“He is still not perfect, not 100 percent, but he is getting better every day," Alonso said of Mbappe after that match. “Now he will have three days to keep progressing and feeling better ahead of the semi-final."

It is hard to imagine Mbappe not getting his first start of the tournament against PSG, the club that won the Champions League in the season following his departure after many years of disappointment in Europe with him in the team.

PSG arrived in the US fresh from crushing Inter Milan 5-0 in the Champions League final. They reached the last four with a 2-0 win over Bayern Munich in Atlanta in the quarter-finals—despite having Willian Pacho and Lucas Hernandez sent off—and need not fear Real.

“It doesn’t matter who we play in the semi-finals. All that matters is that we are there and that we want to get to the final," said Luis Enrique, for whom this is also a special occasion given he spent five years at Madrid as a player in the 1990s.

Alonso has just taken over as Real coach after an outstanding spell with Bayer Leverkusen and has already shown great tactical flexibility, alternating between a back four and a three-man central defence during the tournament.

It will be fascinating to see which system he opts for here, and if Mbappe starts as he prepares to play against PSG for the first time since July 2017, when he was still a thrilling teenager at Monaco.

With AFP Inputs

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