The forward’s likely destination is Real Madrid for a world record £160m fee – in another age it would not happen but history suggests it may work out
What do you get if you cross Kylian Mbappé with Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Love Island, Jeremy+Corbyn+hot+leaked+pics and What Is Wrong With My Thumbs? It’s hard to say for sure. But thanks to the hive-mind thought-invasion robots of the internet you are at least now reading this article about the brilliant, wonderful Mbappé and the most interminable, clickbait-heavy transfer story of football’s great summer of money.
Most things don’t happen. Often football transfer talk is a kind of currency in itself, a semi-detached entity, enough to lubricate the cogs, push related deals along and keep the wider industry whirring along on its own hot air. When it comes to Mbappé, however, things do seem to be moving finally.
Related: Real Madrid closing in on £161m world record deal for Monaco’s Kylian Mbappé
The lesson of Monaco is that the speed an elite team is assembled and then torn apart has accelerated to hyper-speed
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