Ryan Giggs has opened up on a curious episode from his coaching days at Manchester United, revealing how the club had an early opportunity to sign a teenage Kylian Mbappe but chose not to follow through after their scouting department returned an unconvinced verdict.
Speaking on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, Giggs, who joined United's coaching staff under Louis van Gaal after retiring as a player, explained that the tip about Mbappe came from an unexpected source during a trip to the south of France in 2015.
According to Giggs, he was approached by a French United supporter named Lionel while walking back to his hotel. The fan, who said he regularly watched youth football in France, urged Giggs to take note of a young Monaco player.
"He comes up to me and says 'hi, I'm Lionel. I just wanted to just say hello. I'm a big United fan and big fan of yours. But I watch a lot of youth football in France, and you have to look at this player. He's called Kylian Mbappé. He's at Monaco and I think he's a player for Man United,'" Giggs recalled.
Giggs said the encounter did not end there, as Lionel later followed up by sending him detailed information about Mbappe via email. Intrigued, Giggs and fellow coach Albert Stuivenberg, who was also part of the United staff at the time and later worked with Arsenal, decided to investigate further using their own eyes.
"A few weeks later, he emailed me all the details. So me and Albert again... we used to in the afternoons just go and watch games or go and watch players at the training ground. So anyway, I've told him about this thing. He says 'come on, let's get him up.' And we got a few youth games with Monaco and we seen him and just like, 'wow, what is this?'" Giggs said, adding that even at that young age, Mbappe's talent was unmistakable. "You can see players and they can be special, but he did look exceptional, obviously."
Having been sufficiently impressed, Giggs and Stuivenberg passed on their recommendation to United's scouting network, who dispatched a representative to run a more formal check on the player. However, the timing proved awkward, as Mbappe was involved in a fixture that saw Monaco face Paris Saint-Germain, meaning the scout's assessment came in a Parisian setting rather than watching the player in his usual Monaco surroundings.
Giggs revealed that when he later asked how the scouting report went, the response was underwhelming. "I think a few weeks later, I said to this guy 'how did it go?' and he went 'yeah, they weren't too sure about him, so we just left it, and that was it,'" Giggs said, summing up how United's interest quietly fizzled out.
The decision to walk away would prove to be a significant missed opportunity. Mbappe went on to establish himself as one of Monaco's brightest young talents, playing a key role in the club's Ligue 1 title triumph in 2017. That breakthrough campaign paved the way for a move to Paris Saint-Germain in a transfer that ranked as the second most expensive in football history at the time.
At PSG, Mbappe developed into one of the world's premier forwards, winning multiple domestic honors and playing a starring role in France's triumphant 2018 World Cup campaign. He eventually left PSG in 2024 to join Real Madrid, continuing a career that United had an early, and ultimately unfulfilled, chance to be part of.
Based on reporting from Independent Football.