When Kylian Mbappé takes the field in a French national team uniform, the 27-year-old forward is competing against not just 11 opponents but countless greatness-chasing peers — past and present.
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Mbappé was just 19 when he powered France to the 2018 World Cup crown and became the second-youngest player — behind Pelé — to score in the title game. Four years later, he became the second player to net a hat trick in the World Cup final. Mbappé recently became his nation’s all-time leading scorer, and he has notched more World Cup goals than anyone not named Lionel Messi.
So Mbappé has been in conversation with the icons of men’s soccer for nearly his entire career. Rather than tune out such noise, the Paris native dials up the volume. Other players may project a one-game-at-a-time ethos: Keep your focus on the field, worry only about what you can control and so on. Mbappé doesn’t buy it. He is ever mindful of where his sterling career lands in the annals of soccer history — and would wager he’s far from alone.
“It’s something that is in the mind of every player,” Mbappé said in an interview. “Everybody plays to have a legacy. It’s for you. It’s for your family. It’s for your loved ones. It’s for the people. It’s for the fans. It’s for everyone. That’s the legacy.”
If Mbappé retired tomorrow, he would go down as one of the greatest to play the game. But he’s not going to retire tomorrow. Or next year. Probably not in the next decade.
Just consider his past few weeks. After scoring twice in a 3-1 win over Senegal to open the tournament, he repeated the feat in a 3-0 rout of Iraq. Turning distributor, he provided two assists in a 4-1 victory against Norway. He kicked off the knockout round with two goals in a 3-0 hammering of Sweden to draw level with Messi atop the tournament’s Golden Boot standings.
Next up: A round-of-16 clash with underdog Paraguay on Independence Day in Philadelphia. Boasting 18 career World Cup goals, Mbappé has surpassed previous record-holder Miroslav Klose and sits one behind Messi for the all-time lead. Even if Messi ends this tournament atop that list, it’s safe to assume the 39-year-old legend won’t be around for another World Cup. But Mbappé? At his age? With that drive? He might have three more tournaments in him.
“Everything starts here, at the mentality,” Mbappé said, gesturing toward his head. “You wake up with the determination to do things well, to do things again if you already won everything — to do things again, again and again because you love what you do, because you want to perform at the highest level, and because you want to leave a mark and leave a legacy.
“Everybody wants to be in your position, so it’s something that you have to deal with and always work hard to achieve.”
Mbappé has raised the bar so high that every shortcoming, perceived or otherwise, is magnified. He has never lifted the UEFA Champions League trophy during a club career with Monaco, Paris Saint-German and Real Madrid. He also hasn’t won any major titles since leaving his hometown behind and making a mega-move to Madrid two summers ago. For all of his World Cup success, he hasn’t claimed a European Championship crown with France. A few noisy observers have critiqued his focus and defensive work rate.
On the World Cup stage, however, he has been unimpeachable. An explosive dribbler with a lethal right foot, Mbappé has showcased his scoring range this summer. His first goal against Senegal came off a slashing run and tidy finish. The second was a long-range stunner. He switched it up for his two goals against Iraq, rifling home one shot with his weaker left foot and tapping in another off a turnover. He darted inside and curled home the opener Tuesday against Sweden. And Mbappé did it all to cap that victory, when he slalomed through midfield, picked out a teammate with a cheeky backheel, slipped behind the defense, collected a pass in stride and deposited a shot in the net.
“Kylian is a match-winner,” France Manager Didier Deschamps said via an interpreter. “I’ve always said that. Even if he doesn’t have a great game overall, he has the ability to win the match for his team with a single moment of brilliance. People might say, ‘Yes, but he doesn’t defend enough.’ Well, he isn’t there to defend.”
There’s no doubt about that. Whether playing in France’s Ligue 1 or Spain’s La Liga, Mbappé has led his league in scoring each of the past eight seasons. Coming off yet another prolific club campaign — with a cool 42 goals in all competitions for Madrid — Mbappé could very well steer France to an unprecedented third straight World Cup final. Should that occasion arrive, he will be as prepared as they come.
“I have lessons from winning the World Cup, I have lessons from losing the World Cup. I have lessons from everything,” Mbappé said. “It’s good when you win something — and I don’t talk only about the World Cup — because you know one way to achieve this goal. But there are a hundred ways to win a World Cup. Me, I know one way to win the World Cup, and that’s the way we won in Russia.”
Although Mbappé shared the spotlight with such teammates as Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba and Raphaël Varane when Les Bleus claimed that 2018 title, he was the spark that lit a blazing French attack. After scoring twice in a pulsating round-of-16 win over Argentina, he also netted the final French goal in the championship-clinching victory over Croatia. Named the tournament’s best young player, Mbappé was on top of the world before he turned 20.
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“The first thing that you have to control when you play in the World Cup is your emotion,” Mbappé said of what he learned from that run. “When you go on the pitch, you know that you represent all the French around the world, and it’s something that you have to deal with. Your first opponent, more than the other team, is your emotion.”
Four years later in Qatar, Mbappé did everything imaginable to will France to another title. He scored twice in a two-minute span to draw France level in the final against Messi’s Argentina, then found the net again in extra time and converted in the shootout. But it wasn’t enough. Looking back on that all-timer of a match, Mbappé has a pragmatic takeaway: Les Bleus must be sharper from the penalty spot this time around.
“You know everything you do and everything that didn’t work,” Mbappé said. “We lost the World Cup on the penalty shot, so we know that it’s something that we have to work on if we want to achieve and if we arrive in this situation again.”
They very well could. Beyond Mbappé, a loaded French squad boasts reigning world player of the year Ousmane Dembélé and budding attackers Michael Olise, Désiré Doué and Bradley Barcola. Dayot Upamecano and William Saliba anchor a stout defense in front of goalkeeper Mike Maignan. Adrien Rabiot and Aurélien Tchouaméni slickly pull the strings in midfield. On paper, no one bests Les Bleus.
“We have this chemistry together that is so obvious, and you can see on the pitch that everybody wants to die for the others,” Mbappé said. “We are one of the best teams in the world. I think is not a shame or pretension to say that.”
Shepherding that group — not as an upstart attacker but as a World Cup-winning veteran — is Mbappé, who took over the French captaincy after Hugo Lloris retired from international competition in 2023. To Deschamps, the appointment only formalized Mbappé’s influence. “He has been a leader,” the longtime manager said, “from day one.”
Ibrahima Konate, a French teammate who will join Mbappé at Madrid next season, sees him as a conduit between the players and the coaching staff. “He makes sure he talks with the manager to fix things for us to make sure we are happy,” the defender said. “He’s an amazing captain.” As the next crop of French prodigies break into the national team, Mbappé recognizes his role as the phenom turned veteran.
“Many of them saw me on TV when I was playing in the World Cup,” Mbappé said. “For them, I used to be an example. So I have to be the best version of myself to show them the way to succeed with the national team.”
Mbappé’s inviting magnetism is evident whether he’s striking his famed cross-armed celebration, bantering with James Corden on late-night television or, in this case, sitting down at France’s team hotel during a pre-World Cup swing through Washington. Although his presence that day came with its fair share of hoopla — he entered a conference room accompanied by a dizzying cavalcade of team staffers and personal aides — his vibe remained decidedly serene. Mbappé responded to questions about triumphs and tribulations alike with a grin and a shrug.
It helps that Mbappé doesn’t have much of a filter. Politically, he has eschewed other soccer stars’ nonpartisanship and vocally opposed France’s far-right National Rally party. He also lambasted sports betting as “destructive” while explaining his refusal to promote gambling platforms. During an era in which transcendent stars are often forced into personality-less submission, Mbappé — he of 132 million Instagram followers — remains refreshingly, unabashedly himself.
“I’m not going to be a different person,” he said, “or a different player.”
It’s why Mbappé addressed his much-scrutinized transfer to Madrid as less of a blockbuster move and more of a matter-of-fact inevitability. “At the end of the day,” Mbappé said, “it’s easy to go to the best club in the world.” For all of Paris Saint-Germain’s esteemed history, thriving at Madrid — the winner of a record 15 European titles — was a must on his career bucket list.
“I think his motivation is just there,” Konate said. “With his quality, with his mentality, with his talent, he can be one of the best players ever with [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Messi — all of these big names. I think this is what he wants at the end. When he will retire, people are going to talk about him like that.”
Well, they already are. If Mbappé again lifts the trophy later this month and leapfrogs Messi for the scoring record, his World Cup résumé will be unparalleled.
The scary part? The ever-propulsive Mbappé has no intention of slowing down.
“Even after a big title, individual award, collective award, I always focus on what I can do more,” Mbappé said. “I’ll play to have a legacy that people can remember my name and say, ‘This guy was a f—ing good player.’”
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