Kylian Mbappe has once again reignited the rumours linking him with a move to Manchester United in the summer. The club’s potential new owner Sheikh Jassim is said to be interested in making statement signings if he acquires the club.
And as far as statement signings go, one cannot go higher than Mbappe.
Kylian Mbappe celebrates after scoring against Troyes on May 7.
But apart from those reports, Mbappe has seemingly been sending indications of a possible move to Old Trafford. It remains unknown whether he does it knowingly or not, but the fact of the matter is, at least two of Mbappe’s recent Instagram posts have had the word ‘Manchester United’ embedded in them.
Mbappe’s cryptic Instagram posts
It started on February 14 when he took to his account after Paris Saint-Germain had just lost the Champions League round of 16 first leg to Bayern Munich. Mbappe was barely fit for that game and came off the bench and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t impact the game.
He wrote, ‘Tout reste à faire’, and tagged his club, which when translated, means ‘All that remains to be done’ or ‘Everything has to be done’ ahead of the second leg. However, Instagram translated it to ‘All that remains to be done… Manchester United’s team is now on @psg.
This was passed off as perhaps Mbappe rallying his teammates to pull off a comeback in the second leg the way United had done on them a couple of seasons back against all odds.
One thing that stood out in both posts was immediately after his French caption; what followed was the ellipsis sign(…) and two coloured circular emojis, a red one followed by a blue one, then he tagged his club.
Sports Brief repeated the same trick but used ‘je suis journaliste sportif’ which means I am a sportswriter as a caption. We then followed it up with the ellipsis, the coloured emojis and tagged PSG. Upon sharing the story, Instagram translated the caption to ‘I’m a sports journalist… Manchester United’s team is now on @psg’
Verdict
Sorry Manchester United fans, it seems like Mbappe is not doing this knowingly. It looks like there is an Instagram glitch as far as the translation is concerned.
What’s interesting, though, is why of all clubs, the translation feature settled on Manchester United. When the same caption is used but one tags a different club, the caption remains as written.
Either it is a glitch or Instagram has specific emojis that denote certain teams.
It doesn’t mean Mbappe can’t sign for Manchester United. Have some faith – it’s the hope that kills.
When Mbappe praised Rashford
Sports Brief had earlier reported that Mbappe and Marcus Rashford are arguably among the fastest-rising stars in modern-day football. The former especially has already exacted his presence with blistering performances on the biggest of stages, such as the World Cup final.
the idea of these two possibly linking up at Old Trafford next season creates an interesting prospect.
Mbappe and Rashford already have a rapport and have the greatest amount of respect for each other. They have met a couple of times, the most recent being the World Cup quarter-final, where France triumphed over England.