Mbappé breaks Pelé tie, reaches 13th World Cup goal

Kylian Mbappé pushed past Pelé and into a tie for fourth place on the World Cup scoring list, a milestone shaped as much by consistency as by one decisive finish. The France forward scored in the 66th minute against Senegal after Édouard Mendy had turned away several earlier chances, extending a tournament résumé that has grown across three World Cups.

The goal gave Mbappé 13 in World Cup play, one more than Pelé’s 12 and level with Lionel Messi and Just Fontaine. He entered the match with 12 goals in 14 World Cup appearances, including four in 2018 and eight in 2022, a pace that sets him apart even in a sport where scoring records often reflect very different eras and tournament structures. Mbappé is now one goal behind Germany’s Gerd Müller, two behind Brazil’s Ronaldo, and still chasing Miroslav Klose, whose 16 goals remain the benchmark.

Mbappé’s latest strike also drew him level with Olivier Giroud on France’s all-time scoring list with 57 national-team goals. At 27, he has already defined the biggest stages of his generation: he helped France win the 2018 World Cup, then carried them to the 2022 final in Qatar, where he won the Golden Boot with eight goals and the Silver Ball as the tournament’s second-best player.

His World Cup file is unusually dense for a player still in his prime. In the 2022 final against Argentina, Mbappé scored a hat-trick, becoming only the second man after Geoff Hurst to do so in a World Cup final. Those three goals gave him four in World Cup finals, more than any player in history, and underscored how often he has delivered when the pressure has been highest.

Mbappé’s first World Cup goal came against Peru in 2018, when he was 19 years and 183 days old, making him France’s youngest-ever scorer at a major tournament. Seven years later, the pattern is the same: early arrival, sustained production, and a record that now places him among the sport’s most prolific scorers on its most watched stage.