Even at the young age of 24, Kylian Mbappe is on track to have one of the greatest careers in football history.
A penalty shootout loss to Argentina in the Qatar 2022 World Cup final cruelly deprived the France international a second straight World Cup, but you wouldn’t bet on him winning the sport’s top honor once more.
There is a good likelihood that one day Mbappe will be brought up in the discussion regarding Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo’s status as two of the greatest players in sports history as the argument over them continues.
The PSG superstar’s future is uncertain, and what happens next in his sparkling career is still up in the air, but he is on track to set records for club and nation, as well as for the World Cup, the Champions League, and beyond.
A career lasts 15 years, Mbappe said in 2015 to UEFA.com.
“Give everything for 15 years, and then you can look back and see what you accomplished. And you’ll be able to boast about it for the rest of your life: “I achieved this.”
“I’ve never claimed I am going to be the best player in history, but I’ve also never set boundaries for myself. If I reach a particular point, I won’t put up a barrier that says, “If I get there, then that’s it, that’s my maximum,” or something similar.”
“No, I try to go beyond my comfort zone to see where that leads. I’m now finding it to be successful, so I’ll keep doing it until my career is through.”
“I tell myself I’m the best every time I enter the field, but [Lionel] Messi and Cristiano [Ronaldo] have played on the same field as me and are greater players than me!”
They’ve accomplished a vastly greater number of things than I have, yet I constantly remind myself that I am the best because doing so prevents you from placing limitations on yourself and encourages you to give your all.
Given what Mbappe has already accomplished, there surely don’t seem to be any restrictions on what he can continue to do and accomplish in the rest of his career. Here are eight amazing records that he really has a chance to shatter.
– Barring an unusual event, Mbappe will undoubtedly surpass Miroslav Klose as the leading scorer in World Cup history. He scored a hat-trick in the competition, matching Pele’s record of 12 goals at the age of just 23. If given the chance to participate in three more World Cups, you would anticipate him to surpass Klose’s record of 16 goals by scoring at least five more; it wouldn’t be shocking if he did so in the North American World Cup of 2026.
– With his 52nd goal for Les Bleus during the World Cup, Olivier Giroud surpassed Thierry Henry to become France’s all-time leading scorer. But the attacker is unquestionably just a stand-in for Mbappe, who is only 17 goals behind and has 36 goals in his first 61 international outings.
– Mbappe is only 10 goals away from Edinson Cavani’s club mark of 200 goals for PSG across all competitions. He will undoubtedly check that box in the upcoming days.
The 24-year-old needs to put in a lot of effort if he wants to one day lead the list of Champions League goal scorers all-time. He presently has 40, exactly 100 fewer than Cristiano Ronaldo, the competition’s all-time leading scorer. But it’s not hard to picture Mbappe getting there one day when you remember that Ronaldo had just 11 Champions League goals at the same age.
– If Mbappe stays in France, it’s a matter of when, not if, he breaks the record for most goals scored in Ligue 1 history. The record is now held by Argentine striker Delio Onnis, who played for Reims, Monaco, Tours, and Toulon between 1971 and 1986 and scored 299 goals in 449 games. Currently, Mbappe has 147 goals in Ligue 1.
– Mbappe may set his sights on players like Pele (604 league goals), Romario (544), Josef Bican (518), Ferenc Puskas (514), Cristiano Ronaldo (497) and Lionel Messi (480) in addition to league scoring records worldwide and in Ligue 1. He’ll need to score more goals when he enters his prime to accomplish this, but Messi and Ronaldo both achieved it in their mid- to late-20s. The best may yet be to come.
– Dani Alves, who has won 43 titles while playing for some of the top clubs in the world, is presently the most decorated player in football history. Mbappe has previously won the World Cup and Nations League on the international scene, in addition to five Ligue 1 championships and seven French domestic cups. Expect those stats to keep rising in the years to come given that he will undoubtedly spend his career at Europe’s most dominant clubs.
– According to statistics, Messi has recorded more assists than any other football player (350 in 1003 appearances). Mbappe can certainly shatter that record because he now has 132 career assists, which is 48 more than Messi did at the same age.
