{"id":813074,"date":"2026-07-19T23:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T23:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/813074\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T23:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T23:33:10","slug":"world-cup-2026-kylian-mbappe-becomes-first-player-to-win-golden-boot-twice-as-rodri-named-best-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/813074\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Kylian Mbappe becomes first player to win Golden Boot twice as Rodri named best player"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kylian Mbappe has become the first player to win the World Cup Golden Boot twice after earning the award for top scorer at the 2026 tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The France forward netted 10 goals in eight games to edge out Lionel Messi <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/world-cup\/top-scorers\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in a high-quality race.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having struck eight times to finish <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/64019023\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">top scorer at Qatar 2022<\/a>, Mbappe has won the Golden Boot in back-to-back World Cups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 27-year-old was the first man to reach double figures for World Cup goals since Gerd Muller for West Germany in 1970.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c621xndyd7no\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Just Fontaine, who hit 13 for France in 1958<\/a>, and Hungary&#8217;s Sandor Kocsis with 11 in 1954, have scored more individual goals in a single tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mbappe is also now the men&#8217;s World Cup all-time top scorer with 22 goals &#8211; one ahead of Messi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">World champions Spain swept the rest of the awards, including captain Rodri winning the Golden Ball as the tournament&#8217;s best player.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mbappe moved clear of Messi on Saturday with two goals in the bronze match, although he could not stop France falling to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/live\/cly5lj1nqdxt#Report\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a 6-4 defeat against England<\/a> and finishing fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When you score that many goals in the World Cup, it certainly takes you to a whole new level,&#8221; he said after Saturday&#8217;s match in Miami.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But I would have preferred not to be the top scorer and to have played in the final. It&#8217;s good for my legacy once I&#8217;ve retired, but right now, that&#8217;s not what&#8217;s on my mind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mbappe also scored twice against Senegal and Iraq in the group stage, as well as Sweden in the last 32.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He followed that with strikes against Paraguay in the last 16 &#8211; the 70th-minute winner from the penalty spot &#8211; and against Morocco in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Messi could have overtaken the Real Madrid forward with a hat-trick in the World Cup final on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the 39-year-old could not find the net in New Jersey as his Argentina side were beaten 1-0 by Spain, and ended the competition with eight goals in as many matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England&#8217;s Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland of Norway scored seven times, while France forward Ousmane Dembele and English captain Harry Kane followed them in the list with six.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kylian Mbappe has become the first player to win the World Cup Golden Boot twice after earning the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-813074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}