{"id":771283,"date":"2026-07-19T02:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T02:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/771283\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T02:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T02:18:10","slug":"world-cup-2026-kylian-mbappe-leads-golden-boot-race-for-the-ages-over-to-you-lionel-messi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/771283\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Kylian Mbappe leads Golden Boot race for the ages – over to you Lionel Messi"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Golden Boot race for the ages has the perfect finale – it will go down to the final match of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Kylian Mbappe two goals in France’s incredible 6-4 defeat by England<\/a> in the third-place play-off moved him two goals clear of Lionel Messi, but the Argentine still has one match left to respond.<\/p>\n

And if the 39-year-old can score twice in the final against Spain, he will take the Golden Boot by virtue of having more assists. <\/p>\n

Anything less and Mbappe, 27, will become the first player to scoop the prize twice.<\/p>\n

That is before we even mention the fight between the two men to be the World Cup’s all-time scorer.<\/p>\n

Mbappe now leads that race on 22 goals with Messi one behind.<\/p>\n

Mbappe’s double against England took him to 10 for the tournament – the most in a single edition of the World Cup this century. The last player to make it into double figures at a men’s World Cup was Gerd Muller for West Germany in 1970.<\/p>\n

And to put that feat further into context, prior to this tournament only eight players had scored eight or more goals at a single World Cup – Muller, Just Fontaine, Sandor Kocsis, Ademir, Eusebio, Guillermo Stabile, Ronaldo and Mbappe.<\/p>\n

The 2026 World Cup has certainly been a tournament for the stars.<\/p>\n

England talisman Jude Bellingham’s goal against France moved him into third in the Golden Boot standings on seven – the most an Englishman has scored at a single World Cup.<\/p>\n

That edged him ahead of Erling Haaland by virtue of assists, with Three Lions captain Harry Kane one goal further back alongside France’s Ousmane Dembele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Golden Boot race for the ages has the perfect finale – it will go down to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-771283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}