Players to watch: France's Kylian Mbappé

Kylian Mbappé will feature for France at his third World Cup this summer, at the age of 27. In the final instalment of a five-part series on players to watch at the 2026 tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada, RFI looks at the World Cup career of a goalscorer supreme.

Issued on: 07/06/2026 - 11:02

4 min Reading time

The next time Kylian Mbappé scores for France, he will draw level with Olivier Giroud's national record of 57 goals.

Giroud took 131 games to rack up his tally. Mbappé is one goal off his mark after 96 appearances.

Mbappé's first strike for France was notched up on 31 August 2017 during his fifth cap for his country.

It was the final cut in a 4-0 laceration of the Netherlands in a qualifier for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Once in Russia, Mbappé scored the only goal of the game in the group stage tie against Peru in Ekaterinburg.

Then came the devastating double in the last 16 against Argentina in Kazan that took the game away from the South Americans.

Goal to join Pelé in legend

Mbappé rounded off his first World Cup with a goal to give France a 4-1 lead in the 64th minute of the final at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

France defender Lucas Hernandez picked up the ball from Paul Pogba and bustled down the left wing shrugging off a rugged challenge from Mario Mandzukic before passing the ball to Mbappé who was lurking some 25 metres outside the Croatia penalty area.

The then Paris Saint-Germain striker shaped his body to curl a right-footed shot into the top left-hand corner of Daniel Subasic's goal. The Croatia defender Domagoj Vida stuck his right foot out to block that shot and Subasic was also set to pounce to his left.

But Mbappé had deceived both. The 19-year-old's body – still coiled to shoot to the left – suddenly twisted and he drove the ball to the right into the space they were not defending.

Such savage simplicity effectively ended the game and made Mbappé the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since Pelé dazzled the Sweden defence in June 1958 as Brazil secured the World Cup for the first time.

Goals galore in Qatar 2022

In Qatar in 2022, Mbappé and Giroud again provided the firepower as France  tried to become only the third side after Italy in 1934 and 1938 and Brazil in 1958 and 1962 to win back-to-back World Cups.

Mbappé went into the tournament with 28 goals for France and emerged on 36.

The eight-goal haul included a hat-trick in the final to emulate Geoff Hurst's feat for England in the 1966 final at Wembley against West Germany.

Unlike Hurst, Mbappé ended up on the losing side. Argentina won the penalty shootout following a 3-3 draw after extra-time.

Golden Boot consolation

The 23-year-old walked away with the "Golden Boot" as the tournament's top scorer and a place in the World Cup history books with Hurst.

His goals also allowed him to join Vava, Pelé, Paul Breitner and Zinedine Zidane as the only men to score in two World Cup finals.

Mbappé's tally of four goals makes him the only player to have scored the most goals in finals in the 96-year history of the competition.

Not bad for the lad from Bondy, on the northern outskirts of Paris.

After the defeat in 2022, Mbappé posted on social media: "We will return."

Leader of a talented forward line

The now Real Madrid frontman will go back into the fray as the skipper and undisputed lynchpin of a prodigiously talented French forward line that includes PSG's Ousmane Dembélé and Désiré Doué as well as Bayern Munich's Michael Olise.

Mbappé played in a warm-up match against Cote d'Ivoire in Nantes, western France, just before the France squad flew out to the US. He failed to hit the mark to equal Giroud's record in the 2-1 defeat.

"We shouldn't draw any conclusions from this match, even though we played an excellent game," France defender Aurélien Tchouaméni told French broadcaster TF1.

"The most important thing is to keep working to make the necessary adjustments. We’ll be ready on the big day."

France start their Group I campaign against Senegal on 16 June and six days later take on Iraq in Philadelphia. They play Norway on 26 June in Boston to conclude the pool stages.

With an expanded 48-team tournament leading to a new round of 32 for the top two from the 12 pools as well as the eight best third-placed teams, Mbappé will have a few more minutes to rack up more national and World Cup records.