‘An honour to go level with a player like Thierry Henry’ – Kylian Mbappé reacts to scoring his 51st France goal | OneFootball

France captain Kylian Mbappé (26) has made it 51 goals for France in Les Bleus’ 2-0 away win to Ukraine this Friday at Wroclaw. France kicked off their campaign to qualify for the 2026 World Cup with a convincing result. Didier Deschamps’ men made their task easier in opening the scoring early on courtesy of Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise.

France sustained a bout of pressure from Ukraine until Mbappé doubled his side’s lead ten minutes from time. The Real Madrid centre-forward raced through the Ukrainian defense to receive Aurélien Tchouaméni’s through-ball before outpacing Illia Zabarnyi and finding Anatoly Trubin’s bottom left corner with a powerful low effort.

This is Mbappé’s third goal in France’s last three games. Should he keep this pace up, he’ll go level – and beat – Olivier Giroud’s record tally of 56 France goals in the coming months. “It’s an honour to go level with a player like Thierry Henry“, Mbappé said to TF1. “Everyone knows what he represents for us Frenchmen, particularly strikers. He opened up a path. He completed gigantic feats. I have a lot of admiration and respect for him.”

Quizzed on the opportunity to beat Giroud’s 56-goal haul, Mbappé said that the record was edging closer. “It’s not something I think about. I don’t know if it’s because I think I can beat it or because I think there are more important things, but to be France’s all-time record goalscorer, that’d be something.“

GFFN | Bastien Cheval