Kylian Mbappe: Chasing Glory and Rivalry with Messi
Kylian Mbappe has spent the summer playing with a familiar weight on his shoulders and a familiar glint in his eye. The French captain arrived at this World Cup as the face of a tournament loaded with attacking talent, and he has not ducked the responsibility for a second.
Les Bleus came in as favourites for many, their front line a blur of pace and invention. Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele, Michael Olise, Bradley Barcola – a quartet that stretches defences to breaking point and then keeps pulling. France have largely justified the hype, sweeping through the competition with a swagger that feels both modern and rooted in their own golden past.
At the heart of it all, Mbappe is rewriting the record book in real time. He has already climbed above every great French striker before him to become his country’s all-time leading scorer, pushing the bar out to 63 goals. Seven of those have come in just five matches at this tournament, a ruthless return that has thrown him back into familiar company.
Once again, he finds himself trading blows from afar with Lionel Messi.
The Real Madrid ‘Galactico’ and the Argentine icon are locked in another Golden Boot race, their rivalry stretching beyond club allegiances and into the defining story of an era. Messi, the Argentine GOAT, remains the benchmark. Mbappe, younger, faster, hungry, is intent on catching him – and then passing him.
The bracket has teased the possibility that their paths might cross again when it matters most. France and Argentina have been gliding through opposite sides of the draw, heavyweight shadows inching closer to one another with every round. Out on the outskirts of New York, the stage is already being imagined: another World Cup final, another Mbappe–Messi showdown, another night where legacies bend.
Mbappe would embrace that with relish. He has already lifted one World Cup and come agonisingly close to a second. The idea of becoming a two-time world champion while preventing Messi from matching that feat carries a sharp competitive edge. This is not hostility; it is ambition at its purest, a generational talent desperate to stand alone at the summit.
France’s route has not been entirely smooth, but it has felt assured. They have made relatively light work of most assignments, their depth and cohesion allowing them to manage games with a cold efficiency. When they did wobble, Mbappe stepped in. His penalty was the difference in an emotionally-charged last-16 clash with Paraguay, a tight contest that demanded nerve more than flair.
Argentina’s survival act came with more chaos. They were dragged to the brink by Egypt in a wild, five-goal thriller, somehow scrambling clear from a serious scare to stay alive in the defence of their crown. It was messy, frantic, but they endured – just as champions tend to do.
For now, the reunion is only a possibility, not a promise. Both France and Argentina still have to fight through sterner tests, sharper opponents, nights where one mistake can tear up every script. Yet the sense lingers that Mbappe is chasing something deeply personal as well as national glory: another shot at Messi’s crown, another tilt at the man who has defined the sport he now wants to own.
Louis Saha knows that feeling from inside the French camp. The former international, speaking to GOAL courtesy of Freebets.com, sees a familiar steel in this generation.
“Definitely,” he said when asked if Mbappe will have revenge in mind. “The way I see it, there is a kind of solidarity that I haven't seen in this French team for quite a while.”
Saha’s reference point is telling. He goes back to 2006, to a dressing room led by Zinedine Zidane and Patrick Vieira, a group of veterans who understood that they were nearing the end of the road and played with a ferocious sense of finality.
“I remember it when I was with the team in 2006, with [Zinedine] Zidane and [Patrick] Vieira, all those players, they were at the end of this road. So they had that mindset of, ‘OK, leave everything on the pitch’. And those guys are doing it. They are 25, 27 and they have that sense of creating history, they're playing well, they're having fun.”
This France side, Saha argues, carries that same conviction but with a younger core and a different rhythm. He draws a line to PSG’s recent evolution: solid at the back, quick and daring in transition, confident enough in midfield to dictate the tempo rather than chase it.
“It's an inspiration and it's a kind of, this is my feeling, the same spirit that PSG has got in the last two years,” he said. “They are very solid, but at the same time, they are entertaining. They're playing fast football. They have this confidence in midfield where they maintain the tempo. I am very impressed.”
He pauses, then returns to the man who personifies it all.
“I am very impressed and Kylian Mbappe definitely represents that. So this revenge comes with history and there are a few players who have been there, done really well in 2018, done really well in 2022, but missed this last step. It's unbelievable when you look at this trajectory and journey from the Didier Deschamps team, it's unbelievable.”
Deschamps has indeed built a machine that keeps returning to the sharp end of tournaments. Finals, semi-finals, another deep run here. The names around Mbappe have changed, the supporting cast refreshed, but the standard has not slipped.
Now the question hangs over the closing act of this World Cup: does this France, driven by a record-breaking Mbappe and bonded by that old, hard-edged solidarity, finally take that “last step” again – and do it with Messi standing in their way one more time?
