Kylian Mbappe went level with Lionel Messi in race for the FIFA World Cup 2026 Golden Boot with a goal during the Round of 16 clash against Paraguay on Sunday. Mbappe scored the only goal of the match from the penalty spot to guide his team to a gritty 1-0 victory. The goal took Mbappe’s tally to 7 goals from 5 matches – the joint highest in this year’s competition till now along with Messi. However, Messi has scored 7 goals in 4 games and his last one coming in the Round of 32 game against Cape Verde. When it comes to overall World Cup goals, Mbappe is just one behind Messi with 19. Harry Kane and Erling Haaland are joint third with 5 goals each while Ousmane Dembele, Mikel Oyarzabal, Ismaila Sarr and Vinicius Junior have scored 4 each. It has been a poor show from Cristiano Ronaldo who has scored just 3 goals in 4 matches.
Mbappe stutter-stepped on his way to his 19th goal in 19 World Cup appearances, beating Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill in the 70th minute to break a scoreless tie. France’s captain was awarded the penalty when Diego Gomez was called for tripping after a video review.
“I’ve said from the first day that he had the spirit. He gave all the athletic efforts,” France coach Didier Deschamps said after Les Bleus won 1-0. “He’s a great top-notch player on the pitch. But when he speaks, he speaks for the entire group.”
It was the seventh goal of this tournament for Mbappé, matching Messi in the race for the Golden Boot for the World Cup’s top scorer. Mbappe won that award four years ago in Qatar, but Messi and Argentina beat France in the final.
Mbappe is now the only player to score at least three goals in the knockout stage of three World Cups. On Saturday, he endured against perhaps the most physical opponent he’s faced in this tournament.
Tempers flared in the first half when Andrés Cubas took down Mbappé and the teams briefly pushed and shoved each other. Matías Galarza also threw his right elbow into Mbappé and sent him crashing to the grass.
After Mbappe ignored Gill’s attempt at a postgame handshake, the goalkeeper threw a ball at the France star’s back.
“We knew what kind of match it was going to be. We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it,” Mbappe said in French. “We know how to play ugly football. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready. Even at that kind of game, we were better than them. That’s their style of football. There’s no right or wrong way to play the game. They tried to beat us that way, but we won.”
And the victory cleared the way for Mbappe to continue chasing Messi’s career goals mark.
Messi scored his 20th career World Cup goal in Argentina’s 3-2 win over Cape Verde on Friday night. The 39-year-old great also has goals in a record eight consecutive World Cup games.
If there’s a tie in the Golden Boot standings when the tournament ends, FIFA will use assists as the first tiebreaker and fewest minutes played as the second tiebreaker. Mbappé has a 2-0 lead over Messi in assists.
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