Messi setting the stage for Mbappe to quietly become World Cup GOAT | OneFootball

When Kylian Mbappe breaks whatever World Cup goal record that Lionel Messi sets, will anyone even care?

A hat-trick in Argentina’s World Cup opener moved Messi level with Miroslav Klose on 16 goals, which you will absolutely already know given the fellatious wall-to-wall coverage of the feat on Wednesday morning.

Messi’s achievement should not have prompted the search for deeper meaning that many have embarked upon in the wake of a 3-0 win over Algeria. Messi was already a World Cup immortal but the goalscoring record, when he sets it – almost certainly against Austria or Jordan – only further enhances a legacy that has little more room to grow.

Messi should cherish his record-holder status because it won’t be in his possession for long.

Mbappe is speeding up behind his former PSG team-mate, his two goals against Senegal taking him to 14 finals goals. Only Ronaldo – the Brazilian one – stands between Mbappe and the leading pair.

Mbappe will probably motor past Klose before the end of the group stage. Aged 27, he will have at least one more tournament after this to overtake Messi. Surely only something catastrophic can stop him now.

His World Cup record already outshines the 21st century’s other defining stars. Mbappe’s 14 goals have come in 15 games; Messi’s 16 were scored over 27 matches. Cristiano Ronaldo, doubtless preparing to shoot from all manner of impossible angles against DR Congo, has eight in 22.

Mbappe’s status as the third wheel in that particular axis of excellence is perhaps why the France captain is not as feted as he ought to be.

Narrative has dictated that we all must pick a side in the decades-long Messi v Ronaldo war – you can’t simply revere both, apparently. Their battle has driven both to frankly astonishing feats and their longevity is really spoiling us now the slugfest goes into and beyond a sixth World Cup finals.

But while Messi and Ronaldo dominate the headlines and narrative, Mbappe has comparatively quietly set himself on a course to become the World Cup GOAT.

Ronaldo cannot compete with Mbappe’s tournament pedigree, while Messi can only fend off the Frenchman for so long. If not at this World Cup, then surely Mbappe will become the leading goalscorer at 2030.

The World Cup is Mbappe’s natural habitat. Doubtless it helps that his one title came as a precocious talent when he became the first teenager to score in a World Cup final in 2018. That certainly seemed to put him at ease in 2022. He won the Golden Boot in Qatar, even scoring a hat-trick in the final. But that feat was overshadowed by Messi’s crowning glory, a triumph that the Argentina star spent the span of an entire career – a normal one, not a superhuman one – chasing.

In World Cups, Messi seemed overburdened – by expectation and the shadow of Diego Maradona – until winning it at the fifth attempt. Meanwhile, Mbappe plays with utter freedom on the same stage, liberated by his teenage glory.

In their club careers, the opposite is true of both. Messi’s individual and club honours have made him beyond reproach. In contrast, whatever Mbappe does never seems to be enough.

At PSG, winning domestic titles, doubles, trebles was expected. That they finally won the Champions League and retained it after he left to join the competition’s most decorated club was a bad look for Mbappe.

PSG’s success in Mbappe’s absence and Real Madrid’s struggles since he signed offer an excellent narrative, but correlation does not imply causation. Mbappe has scored a ludicrous 86 goals in 103 games for Real, but nuance is lost on many these days, especially the millions who have supposedly put their names to a petition demanding his exit from the Bernabeu.

There is plenty of time yet for Mbappe to win over the doubters and silence his critics at Real. But whatever he achieves at club level will almost certainly be overshadowed by his international legacy.

Just as we have revelled in Messi and Ronaldo driving one another to ridiculous heights, there is greatness unfolding in their shadows during Mbappe’s procession to World Cup preeminence.