Kylian Mbappe’s Chase of Lionel Messi’s World Cup Records Has Familiar Parallel

Two of the greatest to ever play the sport, endless records waiting to change hands. The young lion challenging the bar set by an elder statesman, much like Tiger Woods did with Jack Nicklaus.

Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi can do things mere mortals can’t. | Xu Chang/Xinhua/Getty Images, Masashi Hara/Getty Images

We should not be surprised that the stars have come out to play at this year’s World Cup.

The biggest, most expansive, most watched and most well attended tournament in recent memory was a natural to play host to some grand performances by the sport’s biggest names, but the past two weeks in North America have exceeded expectations of even the most optimistic supporter of the beautiful game several times over. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that the Golden Boot chase this year is not, despite the presence of some of the familiar figures atop it, simply a Ballon d’Or shortlist. That’s how good things have been.

As the group stage winds down and the knockouts arrive in earnest to signal the start of the real tournament though, there is an interesting storyline which is starting to bubble up.

Argentina’s Lionel Messi seems to keep making history every time he steps on to the pitch and memorably became the all-time leading scorer in World Cup history with 18 goals—and counting—during his second appearance with a brace against Austria. Given that the reigning champions look to be a good bet to keep playing for several more rounds as part of a favorable path forward, it’s important to emphasize that he’s more than capable of extending the bar well past previous record-holder Miroslav Klose’s mark. 

Kylian Mbappé’s achieved greatness but has not yet climbed the Ballon d’Or mountain. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

For all of Messi’s deserved brilliance at the same time he celebrates his 39th birthday, such an accomplishment would normally put him in the type of territory where you would say he’s going to hold onto the top spot for years to come. The nature of all-time records is that they have a bit of semi-permanence to them, becoming enshrined as some sort of reference point that gets brought up tournament after tournament.

Except in this case, you do have to wonder if the baton will be passed twice in two months. 

France’s talisman Kylian Mbappé is nipping at Messi’s heels, with 16 goals in 16 games at the World Cup to pull level with old record-holder Klose. At just 27 years old, he looks like he’ll have plenty more chances to equal or surpass the Argentine on the leaderboard—perhaps as soon as next month if he can help guide Les Bleus to the final in New Jersey.

This chase between two all-time greats, from nominally different eras but who are still overlapping still at the World Cup, is reminiscent of one from another sport. 

Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus dominated their respective eras in golf. | Augusta National/Getty Images

Tiger Woods’s pursuit of Jack Nicklaus. 

Messi is of course the elder statesman and the one who has laid down the mile-marker for all to follow. He’s collected career trophies like some collect beads during Mardi Gras. His reputation as one of the greatest to ever do it, if not the greatest, is near universal. He dazzles between the lines in ways that get the casual fans excited for even the mere thought that he is about to shoot on goal. 

Plus, much like Nicklaus, he frequently had to deal with comparisons with accomplished elders that took on plenty of mythologizing—countryman Diego Maradona in Messi’s case, Ben Hogan for Nicklaus—and massive rivalries with peers of the same age that helped elevate the sport at large. Messi’s career has been largely twinned with Cristiano Ronaldo as a natural foil from their battles on opposite sides of El Clasico, while golf would not be what it is today if it were not for the Golden Bear going head-to-head with Arnold Palmer for a few decades.

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Mbappé channels Woods in that he was heralded as a youngster long before taking the world by storm and equally might be able to lay claim to an incredible run in a short period of time. Though the Frenchman has not yet completed soccer like Woods did around the turn of the century with his aptly-named Tiger Slam, due to a lack of a Champions League trophy, he is well positioned to make an unfathomable three World Cup finals in a row (and very nearly went back-to-back in Qatar four years ago). There’s also something unique about his rise as a cultural phenomenon in this era of social media that feels akin to the golf superstar becoming ubiquitous across 24/7 cable television and the booming video games industry a quarter century ago.

As much as one can hope that Mbappé’s career denouement comes nowhere close to what Woods went through on and off the course, the golfer does allow for another good parallel because merely assuming that a player is about to re-write all of the records is an exercise that should be done with caution. It felt fait accompli that Tiger was going to pass Jack back in the day, but that never materialized in reality like we all but assumed. 

Lionel Messi’s taken six World Cup goals to score his goal, Mbappé just three. | Tullio Puglia - FIFA/FIFA/Getty Images

Likewise, even with Mbappé’s current trajectory being stratospheric, one can’t quite write his name in ink above Messi’s until it comes to pass. There’s always the spectre of injury in a sport where the smallest of knocks results in weeks away from training and Mbappé has to deal with internal competition for touches from the wealth of French attacking options even beyond having opposing defenses orient much of their focus to him.

We can still get caught up in rapt attention with what we are watching during this year’s World Cup though, in much the same way that millions were transfixed upon seeing Woods’s dominance give rise to an impressive challenger for the title of greatest of all time. It’s always a joy to witness history in real time and, thankfully for a tournament which has been billed highly for its largess coming in, that’s exactly what we’re seeing transpire between two players who are following a pretty familiar script on this side of the Atlantic.

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