CHENNAI: How do you measure World Cup greatness? If the criteria are goals, then he has 18. If it’s about the impact on the team, his side has reached back-to-back finals and looks destined to reach a third consecutive one. Few players have combined devastating pace, ruthless finishing, and all these uncanny attributes fit into one.
That’s none other than the 27-year-old Kylian Mbappe.
Maybe in terms of sheer talent, one could argue that there’s Pele, Diego Maradona, Ronaldo, the phenomenon or Lionel Messi. But the truth is, Mbappe is both statistically and on the field, much more influential
As Ronaldo himself said, “His playing style reminds me of myself at my peak. He is one of the greatest players in football today and a natural heir to the legends of the game.”
Across just three World Cup campaigns, the French star has scored 18 goals, assisted four times, and spearheaded the European side to a dominant campaign in 2018, when it breezed past Argentina, Uruguay and Croatia.
In the next World Cup, he ensured that France was yet again in the final, with eight goals in the tournament, including a hat-trick that single-handedly kept his side alive against Argentina. With Mbappe on the pitch, Didier Deschamps’ side has won 15 games, drawn twice and just a solitary loss (0-1 vs Tunisia).
What’s incredible, though, is how he has never shied away from taking the responsibility, averaging a goal every game, and is just two goals behind Lionel Messi (20), as the all-time top scorer. And Messi has played six World Cups. It is also visible in how the 27-year-old has involved himself in pressure situations, with ten knockout goals — even more than Brazil's Leonidas and Ronaldo — showing how he thrives when the game is on the line.
At 19 years, when the world was still figuring out how to stop him, the dazzling French star ran rings around the Argentinian defence, and announced himself on the world stage, scoring twice and winning a penalty in Les Bleus’ 4-3 win over Argentina, knocking them out of the competition. A few days later, he also scored a vital goal for France in the 4-2 win over Croatia, winning the FIFA Young Player Award.
Not to forget, no one in the history of the sport has scored more goals in World Cup finals than Mbappe, and if not for Messi’s Argentina side, it would have been one of the few European nations to defend its title successfully. On the field, he’s the driving force, and at times, the quickest one on the pitch, producing moments from seemingly nothing, as he did in the 2022 final against Argentina, when he scored twice.
“I did say that I wanted to enjoy this World Cup to the fullest,” Mbappe said.
The scary part is he’s just 27, so there’s potentially another few World Cups to go, which means he could not just break Messi’s all-time goal-scoring record but could also set one daunting record for future generations.
When the dust settles and bias runs its course, maybe we will recognise Kylian Mbappe’s greatness as maybe the best-ever talent to have played the competition.