It’s no surprise at this point that Kylian Mbappe is one of the biggest stars in world football.
His performances at the World Cup in Qatar are astounding fans as the player is putting up numbers that could end up making him the most successful player in the history of the tournament.
Going for his second star
Mbappe already knows what it’s like to lift the World Cup. He did it four years ago at the World Cup in Russia, where he scored four goals, three of them in the knockout phase of the tournament.
In doing so, the PSG player showed the whole world his great potential. What is clear from Qatar 2022 is that he has lived up to that potential.
For the moment, France are already in the semi-finals where they will face Morocco, the surprise package of the tournament, who have knocked out both Spain and Portugal.
Should the French team end up lifting the trophy, Mbappe will already have two World Cups in his trophy cabinet, like other teammates such as Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud and Hugo Lloris.
That would leave him very close to equaling Pele‘s three World Cups, as Mbappe could be expected to play in at least two more editions due to his age.
Top scorer
As mentioned earlier, Mbappe scored four goals at the World Cup in Russia, while he has now scored five at the World Cup in Qatar, taking his total number of goals to nine between the two tournaments.
For now, France still have two more games to play in this World Cup, the semi-finals and then either the final or the match for third place, where the prodigious forward could take his tally to at least ten or more.
The top scorer in World Cup history is Miroslav Klose, who scored 16 goals for Germany. Given Mbappe‘s progress, it is not unreasonable to think that he could overtake the German in the next few tournaments.
The current difference between the two is seven goals, which is difficult to overcome in a single edition. In fact, the player who scored the most goals in a single tournament was Just Fontaine, who scored 13 goals at the 1958 World Cup.
In the modern era, Ronaldo Nazario scored eight goals for Brazil in 2002.