BORUSSIA DORTMUND missed out on signing Kylian Mbappe for FREE just 12 months before his £153million move to Paris Saint-Germain.
The 22-year-old French striker is now one of the most sought-after talents on the planet with a host of clubs chasing his services.
World Cup winner Mbappe fired PSG to last season’s Champions League final and further enhanced his CV recently with a hat-trick against Barcelona in the same competition.
He first burst onto the scene as a teenager with Monaco and broke Thierry Henry’s record to become their youngest-ever goalscorer in February 2016.
Although he signed a three-year deal with the Ligue 1 side, they were unable to turn down the huge fee on offer from their big-spending domestic rivals and eventually cashed in.
However, former Dortmund chief scout Sven Mislintat has now revealed how close he came to getting the hotshot to the Bundesliga side for NOTHING a year prior to his huge PSG move.
The ex-Arsenal head of recruitment told the Kicker meets DAZN podcast: “It was a real shame that we couldn't get Kylian in.
“Kylian Mbappe was [available] free of charge at a certain point and there were many suitors. But we had no chance of winning that [race].
“If you had been able to steal Mbappe from Monaco for free at the time, it would of course have been a mega deal.”
Mbappe scored 26 goals in 44 games the following season to explode onto the worldwide stage as Monaco won Ligue 1 and reached the Champions League semi-finals.
That summer he then became the second-most expensive transfer of all time behind his team-mate and current strike partner Neymar when he headed north to Paris.
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He has rewarded that massive outlay by rifling in 120 goals in 160 matches and has already reached the 30-mark this campaign.
After winning the title in each of his seasons with PSG, he will be hoping to go one better than last year this time around by firing them to Champions League glory.
They have drawn Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals in a repeat of last season's final with the two powerhouses set to collide next month.
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