Mbappé is only 27 and already owns a World Cup trophy, a World Cup Golden Boot, a Best Young Player award, 12 World Cup goals, the all-time record for goals in World Cup finals, and a hat trick in perhaps the greatest final ever played.
He enters this World Cup looking to add to that already lengthy resume and etch his name among the greatest players of all time. The 2022 World Cup ended up being Messi’s World Cup, his crowning jewel. But a few breaks of the ball the other way and it easily could have been Mbappé’s masterpiece. He will look to rectify that with a loaded France team this time around.
Transfermarkt lists Mbappé at $235.2m, with 96 caps and 56 goals for France, and he enters the tournament as France’s captain and the center of Didier Deschamps’ final World Cup squad. He is the focal point of the devastating attack described above. So Mbappé is no longer carrying a thin attack, he is simply the best weapon in an arsenal full of them.
He is coming off a difficult club season at Real Madrid, but the production is still ridiculous. He led La Liga with 25 goals and added five assists, and also led the Champions League with 15 goals. Even in a year where Real Madrid’s season became complicated, Mbappé’s baseline remains superstar output. There was a hamstring injury in late April that put a little scare into the buildup, and he was booed on his return to Madrid’s lineup, but none of that changes the World Cup reality: if Mbappé is healthy, he is still one of the two or three most dangerous players on Earth.
What makes Mbappé different is that he can ruin a game plan without needing France to dominate. He can play on the left, drift central, lead the line, run beyond, or wait for the one moment when a center back steps too high. He forces opponents to defend 10 yards deeper than they want to. He changes how fullbacks attack. He makes every French clearance feel like the beginning of a counterattack. Deschamps has always been willing to play pragmatic tournament soccer, and Mbappé is the perfect weapon for that approach because he turns caution into threat almost instantly.
The World Cup legacy is already absurd. He won it in 2018 as a teenager, nearly dragged France back from the dead in the 2022 final with a hat trick against Argentina, and already has 12 World Cup goals. Five more in this tournament would take him past Miroslav Klose’s all-time World Cup record of 16. That is the kind of storyline that sounds fake until you remember who we are talking about.
France’s group gives him three very different problems to solve. Senegal can run, defend and get physical. Iraq may sit deep and force France to be patient. Norway bring the Haaland comparison directly into the group stage, which is a gift for everyone watching and probably a nightmare for both coaching staffs. Mbappé does not need to win all three games by himself, but he is the player who can turn any one of them from tight to over in about 15 seconds.
That is why he lands at No. 2. There are other players with better stories, younger players with more mystery, and maybe one player in the tournament who feels like the more dazzling new force. But Mbappé is the safest bet to matter when the stakes get highest. If France win the World Cup, it will probably be because their depth held the structure together and Mbappé supplied the moments that nobody else in the tournament can reliably supply.