Kylian Mbappé spoke Tuesday of his ''immense pleasure'' at finally joining Real Madrid and felt his time at Paris Saint-Germain came to a sad end.
Madrid has reached a widely expected deal with the France star, bringing together a prolific scorer and a record 15-time Champions League winner.
''Finally, it's official, I am going to be a Real Madrid player for the next five years. It's an immense pleasure, a dream coming true, a lot of emotions," Mbappé said at a pre-match news conference in Metz where France hosts Luxembourg on Wednesday ahead of the European Championship. ''I'm very, very happy (and) relieved, very proud to be joining a club where I've always dreamed of being.''
Mbappé's seven years at PSG came to a somewhat difficult end, and his final season started and ended amid tensions.
He was left out of a pre-season tour to Japan in July after not taking up the option of a one-year contract extension, and then initially left out of the squad as the club insisted he could not leave for free and would be sold.
Mbappe was dropped from the squad for the opening league game of the season and feared he would not be playing at all.
''I was told that, I was made to understand it, things were very clear. I was aggressively spoken to. I was convinced I would not play (that season),'' said Mbappé, who praised the intervention of coach Luis Enrique and PSG's soccer advisor Luis Campos on his behalf. ''Without them I would never have played.''
Mbappé informed club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi in February that he was leaving at the end of the season. But when the player made it official that he would not sign another deal with PSG, he did so in a video posted on X and not through the club's communications department.