Messi takes World Cup scoring record as Mbappé closes in

Lionel Messi has moved to 18 World Cup goals, and Kylian Mbappé has climbed to 14, keeping FIFA’s all-time scoring race on a knife edge. Messi took the record from Miroslav Klose with a hat-trick against Algeria and added another goal against Austria, while Mbappé answered with a brace against Senegal.

Messi’s place at the top now rests on 26 World Cup matches, the most by any player, and a tournament arc that FIFA says has stretched across two decades. The Argentina captain has outscored Klose’s previous mark of 16 and Ronaldo’s 15, a tally that puts him beyond the line once seen as unreachable in the World Cup’s scoring pantheon.

Mbappé’s chase carries a different meaning. FIFA already lists the France forward as the World Cup’s top final scorer of all time after he scored in France’s 2018 final win over Croatia and then struck a hat-trick in the 2022 final against Argentina. At 14 World Cup goals, he trails Messi by four but remains within reach if France keeps advancing in future tournaments.

The names around them frame the scale of the chase. FIFA’s record pages place Messi and Mbappé alongside Guillermo Stábile, Leónidas, Gerd Müller, Pelé, Ronaldo, Klose and Just Fontaine, whose 13 goals in 1958 still stand as the men’s single-tournament record. Messi’s rise is the closing act of a two-decade World Cup career; Mbappé’s is the opening chapter of one still gathering speed.