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Remember the coronation that never really happened?
A few years ago, Kylian Mbappé was the heir to the consensus. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would eventually depart, and the kid from Bondy – a World Cup winner as a teenager, the first teenager to score in a final since Pelé – would inherit the throne. In 2022, he almost won by force: a Golden Shoe, a hat-trick in the final, one of the most beautiful individual World Cups ever contested. Argentina still lifted the trophy and the story continued without him.
Four years later, it’s time to look back.
(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
Mbappé, at 27, is currently the best player in the world, and the 2026 World Cup is making his case game by game. Seven goals in five matches: double against Senegal and Iraq, another against Sweden, winner from the penalty spot in a street fight against Paraguay. He became France’s all-time top scorer, overtook Ronaldo and Miroslav Klose in the World Cup scoring charts and now has 19 tournament goals, one behind Messi’s all-time record.
No one in history has scored more goals in the round of 16 of the World Cup. No one has scored more World Cup winners. He leads a France team that appears to be the most complete team in the tournament – and he doesn’t even have to be great every night for the Blues to win all five.
Yes, Messi has a magical farewell and Erling Haaland takes Norway to places Norway has never been. But Messi is 39 years old and playing his last dance. Ronaldo has just left his last World Cup in the round of 16. And Haaland, for all his ruthlessness, is a specialist – the greatest penalty box predator alive, and proudly nothing else.
Mbappé is the complete package. World-class pace that still breaks defensive lines in a dead sprint. The technical ability to beat a man on one side or the other. He can live on the left sideline or in the middle. And he is a clinical finisher through and through. Strikers usually receive one or two of these gifts. He received the whole package.
So why did some people stop saying it? Blame it on the noise in Madrid. Real Madrid’s season has been a soap opera: no trophies, a beleaguered coach and Mbappé considered one of the bad guys, booed in his own stadium in May. Lost in the drama: he won the Pichichi again. His numbers never went down, but the love did.
(Photo by Sven Hoppe/photo alliance via Getty Images)
Now he’s found it, and it shows. Watch him this summer: laughing during hydration breaks, sprinting to hug Didier Deschamps after scoring against Sweden days after the coach buried his mother, playing with the joy of a man who spent a year being told he was the problem and is now, unquestionably, the solution. The smile is back. The terror he inspires too.
Thursday is Morocco in Boston, a rematch of the 2022 semi-final, and perhaps Messi waiting at the end – the ghost of Lusail, four years later, in New York. You couldn’t make a better scenario.
And here’s the thing: despite everything he’s done, Mbappé has never won a Ballon d’Or. Win this World Cup as the star of the show – the record within reach, the Golden Boot on the line, the best team on the field – and this conversation ends in about four seconds.
In 2022, he has done everything except lift the trophy. In 2026, he could do it all, period. The throne remained empty for quite a long time.
