Kylian Mbappe matches Lionel Messi World Cup goalscoring record

France’s 3-1 win over Poland in the 2022 FIFA World Cup knockout rounds was a historic one for Les Bleus.

Olivier Giroud became the nation’s all-time male top goalscorer with his first half strike, Hugo Lloris became the joint highest appearance maker in France’s history, Antoine Griezmann broke the record for most consecutive appearances for Les Bleus, and the young Kylian Mbappe wrote some history of his own.

The 23-year-old broke Pele’s record for most goals at World Cups before the age of 24 with his stunning second half brace, bested Diego Maradona and Cristiano Ronaldo’s eight goals at World Cups, and went joint level with Lionel Messi with nine.

The most astonishing thing about these nine goals is that they’ve been scored in just 11 tournament appearances.

It took Lionel Messi 23 games in five World Cups to reach that figure, while the only four players to have scored nine World Cup goals in less games are Eusebio (6), Ademir (6), Christian Vieri (9) and Vava (10).

Mbappe’s current goals per game record at the tournament is in fact even better than the legendary R9 Ronaldo’s – with Ronaldo having averaged 0.79 goals per game while Mbappe is averaging 0.82.

At just 23 years old, the PSG star has already won the World Cup, becoming the second ever teenager to score in the final – after Pele – and his form in Qatar has made the holders one of the favourites to win the trophy once again.