Brought in from Paris Saint-Germain’s U19s back in 2009, Chris Mavinga had a brief two year spell at Liverpool where he ended up making 17 appearances for the club’s U23s.
Never used by his managers at the time, the left-back spent six months of his time there on loan at Genk before being sold for just under £1m to Rennes, where he spent two seasons before heading to Russia, only to be loaned back twice to France and then moving to Toronto FC in Canada.
The well-travelled 26-year-old recently gave an interview to Onze Mondial in France, where he discussed some of his career decisions, including leaving Paris Saint-Germain’s youth team to give England a go.
Asked if he regretted that decision, he said: “Not at all, not at all. I think it was a really good choice because a year and a half later, I was at Rennes as a 20-year-old. At 20, when you’re in Ligue 1, you aren’t behind. People say I left too early. I don’t agree with that. At that age, you’re at the right point in your career. I was in the Europa League with them, I was playing every game. It was good.
“Six months before that, I was winning the Belgian league. Leaving for Liverpool allowed me to do all that. If I’d stayed at PSG, I’d have had a different career. I’m sure of that. I would have been a key reserve player and ended up in the amateur leagues.”
Mavinga explained that a year before he left, a certain Mamadou Sakho, whom the Reds know really well, had broken through at Paris Saint-Germain, meaning he didn’t exactly have a chance of making the first-team.
He would have had to wait until he left, and that wasn’t something he was prepared to do.
