He is a relentless trailblazer who continues to see one trophy elude him. Kylian Mbappe’s first season after departing the Parc des Princes to join 15-time European champions Real Madrid C.F. in June 2024 cannot be described as anything other than a runaway success from a personal point of view. Yet, in a cruel twist of fate where the striker is concerned, the continental campaign concluded with Paris Saint-Germain capturing their very first UEFA Champions League title… in his absence.
With the French and Spanish powerhouses preparing to face off in the last four of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™, FIFA looks back over Mbappe’s stunning stint in Paris and his equally impressive start to life with Los Blancos.
The king of Paris (2017-2024)
PSG’s all-time leading scorer with 256 goals
By the time Mbappe swapped Paris for Madrid, he had already been PSG’s most prolific marksman of all time for more than two years. The France international sealed his spot in the club’s history books by rounding off the scoring in a 4-2 victory at home to Nantes on 4 March 2023, which took him past previous record holder Edinson Cavani’s tally of 200 goals. The star from the Parisian suburb of Bondy eventually signed off with 256 goals in 308 matches in all competitions, giving him a staggering strike rate of 0.83 goals per game for the club.
Champions League despair despite 15 trophies
Mbappe did not just rack up goals galore during his seven campaigns with the French giants, but he also helped them to an array of silverware. The speedster exited the Parc des Princes on the back of lifting no fewer than 15 pieces of silverware with PSG by the age of just 25, making him one of the club’s most decorated players ever. His trophy haul in the French capital comprised the following:
The [UEFA] Champions League represents the gaping hole in this incredible CV packed with domestic triumphs. The nearest miss came in 2019-20, when Mbappe and Co reached the final but succumbed 1-0 to FC Bayern München in Lisbon. Despite being PSG’s goal king, not just overall but also on the European stage (with 42 goals), the jet-heeled attacker proved unable to inspire the club to continental glory.
* The competition was scrapped after the 2019-20 edition.
Individual accolades aplenty
The Monaco youth product hoovered up the Ligue 1 honours in his seven years at the Parc des Princes. Indeed, he monopolised the top-scorer prize between 2018-19 and 2023-24, establishing himself as the first person to claim the accolade in six successive seasons.
Mbappe also became the record recipient of the award for the league’s player of the season, which is given out by the French footballers’ union (UNFP). With five wins in this period (the only exception being 2019-20, when the accolade was not awarded), Mbappe leapfrogged three-time winner Zlatan Ibrahimovic, another PSG legend.
Immediate impact at Real Madrid (2024-present)
A goal and a trophy on arrival
With his move to the 15-time European champions having been the talk of the football world over the preceding months, Mbappe wasted no time in hitting the headlines with his new employers. On his competitive debut, against Atalanta in the UEFA Super Cup on 14 August 2024, the sharpshooter got his Real Madrid career off to the best possible start, smashing into the top corner to clinch a 2-0 victory and his first trophy with the Spanish club.
La Liga supremacy and three hat-tricks to become an instant fan favourite
The former PSG and Monaco hotshot has certainly lived up to the hype at the Madrid outfit. In his debut season in La Liga, a league renowned for being a tough nut to crack, he demonstrated remarkable consistency and topped the scoring charts with 31 goals in 34 appearances.
Along the way, he bagged two hat-tricks, including one in the 4-3 Clásico reverse away to Barcelona, in which his imperious performance made him the pride of the Bernabeu faithful in spite of the result. That masterclass and his other treble of the campaign, in the 3-1 win over Manchester City in the Champions League last-16 play-offs, proved that he has not lost his touch as a big-game player since switching clubs.
Trophy double but major disappointment
Despite Mbappe’s stellar displays, Real Madrid will certainly consider themselves to have underperformed over the course of the season, as the club bowed out in the Champions League quarter-finals following a 5-1 aggregate thrashing by Arsenal and finished the domestic campaign empty-handed. Nevertheless, triumphs in both the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup™ have provided some measure of consolation.
Mbappe had more than a hand in the latter, for which the final was held at the same venue – Qatar’s Lusail Stadium – where he netted a hat-trick across 120 minutes before a heartbreaking penalty shoot-out loss to Argentina in the FIFA World Cup 2022™ title decider. On this occasion, the Paris-born predator put Los Merengues on course for the trophy by breaking the deadlock in the eventual 3-0 victory over CF Pachuca.
Now back on the global stage, the France captain missed the Club World Cup group stage due to illness, making his comeback in the 1-0 win over Juventus FC in the round of 16 after being introduced shortly after the hour. The Real Madrid number 9 had to bide his time once more against Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-finals but showed that he is close to firing on all cylinders, climbing off the bench to convert a sensational stoppage-time bicycle kick and serve up a reminder of his world-class credentials.
The next marquee encounter awaiting the sharpshooter comes against his ex-employers tomorrow (Wednesday, 9 July). The Parisians will be wary of the threat posed by their old foe and with good reason. Not only is Mbappe a devastatingly effective forward in general but, judging by his record for PSG against Monaco (ten goals in 11 meetings, including a memorable treble in a 3-1 victory in April 2019), he would relish scoring against his former team-mates.
The big question mark is whether Xabi Alonso will hand the pacy frontman his first start of the competition. However, given the 2018 world champion’s knack for delivering the goods on the biggest of occasions, he must surely be chomping at the bit and pushing for a place in Alonso’s XI.
