Can Kylian Mbappe one day break Lionel Messi’s record as Europe’s all-time top goalscorer? | OneFootball

Lionel Messi is the all-time top goalscorer in the history of Europe’s five major leagues – but could his record one day be broken by Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe?

It’s an astonishing record. Messi waved goodbye to European football back in the summer of 2023, with 496 league goals for Barcelona and PSG. That’s one more than his old rival Cristiano Ronaldo.

Messi’s tally of 496 goals in La Liga and Ligue 1 is also 101 more than the third-highest goalscorer in the history of the top European leagues, Robert Lewandowski, who has followed in the Argentinian’s footsteps and left Europe for a new challenge in MLS.

Mbappe doesn’t quite crack the top 10 of Europe’s all-time greatest goalscorers just yet, with Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane (7th with 311 goals) the only current player in the upper echelons.

The Real Madrid Galactico might be the leading goalscorer in the history of both the France national team and the World Cup, but he still has to move above historic names like Gerd Muller, Jimmy Greaves and Dixie Dean in European club football.

But at the age of 27, Mbappe has time on his side to make ground on the legendary names above him. With 191 goals in Ligue 1 for Monaco and PSG, and 56 La Liga goals across two seasons at Real Madrid, it’s surely only a matter of time before he cracks the top 10.

That’s 247 goals in Europe’s major leagues in total, meaning he needs 53 more to eclipse Monaco icon Delio Onnis – Ligue 1’s all-time top goalscorer – and move into the top 10. We’d be amazed if he doesn’t do that by the time he’s 30.

Really, given his age, trajectory and existing record, eventually eclipsing Lewandowski to move third in the all-time top goalscoring charts shouldn’t be beyond Mbappe. He needs 148 more goals to do so – so about 7 more seasons notching 20 goals or more.

But he could do it far quicker if he can emulate peak Messi and Ronaldo and start notching 35+ league goals in his peak years. Mbappe’s current career-best tally for league goals was 33 for PSG back in 2018-19.

Since breaking into Monaco’s first team in 2016-17, he’s averaged roughly 24 league goals per season.

Keeping up that output for another decade – so another 240 league goals – would see Mbappe one day snapping on the coattails of Messi and Ronaldo at the top of the all-time European goalscoring charts. That’d put him up to 487 goals at the age of 37, nine behind Messi’s tally.

Such longevity, continuing to score goals into his late thirties, is anything but a given – particularly when you look at Mbappe’s particular skillset. His explosive pace is such a massive part of his game, like Ronaldo Nazario’s back in the day, and maintaining that while remaining injury-free is easier said than done.

If you look back, Messi had scored roughly as many league goals as Mbappe at the same age. When Messi was 27 years and eight months old, he’d scored 265 goals in La Liga for Barcelona. That’s tracking about 18 ahead of Mbappe, but in the grand scheme it’s a small difference.

After turning 28 in the summer of 2015, Messi scored an astonishing total of 188 goals in six more La Liga campaigns with Barca, averaging 31 goals per season in his peak years.

If we see Mbappe reach those kind of heights as he approaches his thirties, then the prospect of him one day dethroning Messi as Europe’s all-time top goalscorer is definitely on.