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French sensation Kylian Mbappe will bring the curtain down on his career at Paris Saint German on Saturday and has the chance to sign off with another trophy as they play against Lyon. It will be Kylian’s 308th and final appearance for his hometown club, for whom he signed in August 2017 from Monaco in a 180 million euro deal. That is assuming the France captain, now aged 25, plays the game in Lille.
He sat out Paris Saint German’s last two Ligue 1 matches of the campaign, their 2-1 win at Nice on May 15th and Sunday’s 2-0 win at Metz. It seems that he was left out of those matches to keep him fresh for the Cup Final, with PSG having already wrapped up the League title, although coach Luis Enrique hinted that he has not been entirely happy with his star man’s application of late. ‘This week we will see who is ready and who has the most desire’ he said last weekend. ‘The French Cup Final is very important for us.’ Mbappe’s time at PSG has been laden with silverware, at least on the domestic scene. He has helped the Qatar owned club win the Ligue 1 title six times and the now defunct League Cup twice.
Victory against Lyon on Saturday will allow him to claim a fourth winners’ medal in the French Cup. But of course his time at the Parc de Princes has also been marked by a lack of success where it matters most, in the Champion’s League. Mbappe scored 42 goals in 64 appearances for Paris in Europe’s elite club competition but PSG could not lift the trophy in those seven years and have still never won it.
With Mbappe there was a run to the final in Lisbon 2020, when PSG lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich in a game played behind closed doors at the height of the pandemic. With Real Madrid expected to be his next destination, Mbappe will hopeful of finally becoming a Champion’s League winner once he has moved away from Paris and from France.
