Kylian Mbappe has become the first player to win the World Cup Golden Boot twice after finishing as the leading scorer at the 2026 tournament.
The France captain scored 10 goals across eight matches, beating Argentina’s Lionel Messi in the race for the award. Mbappe had also topped the scoring charts at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where he found the net eight times.
His latest achievement makes him the first player to claim the Golden Boot at consecutive men’s World Cups.
The 27-year-old is also the first player to score at least 10 goals in a single World Cup since West Germany’s Gerd Muller in 1970. Only France’s Just Fontaine, who scored 13 times in 1958, and Hungary’s Sandor Kocsis, who registered 11 goals in 1954, have produced higher totals at one tournament.
Mbappe’s performances also took him to the top of the men’s all-time World Cup scoring list. He now has 22 goals in the competition, one more than Messi.
Despite his individual success, France ended the tournament in fourth place. Mbappe scored twice in Saturday’s third-place play-off in Miami, but his side suffered a 6-4 defeat against England.
After the match, Mbappe admitted that reaching the final would have meant more to him than collecting another personal award.
Scoring so many goals at a World Cup strengthened his place in the tournament’s history, he said, but the disappointment of missing out on the final remained his main concern.
Mbappe began the competition with two-goal performances against Senegal and Iraq during the group stage before adding another brace against Sweden in the round of 32.
He then converted the decisive penalty in the 70th minute against Paraguay in the last 16 and scored again during France’s quarter-final victory over Morocco.
Messi entered Sunday’s final with a chance to overtake Mbappe but needed a hat-trick against Spain. The 39-year-old failed to score as Argentina lost 1-0 in New Jersey, leaving him with eight goals from eight appearances.
England midfielder Jude Bellingham and Norway striker Erling Haaland finished behind the leading pair with seven goals each. France forward Ousmane Dembele and England captain Harry Kane both scored six.
World champions Spain collected the tournament’s other major individual prizes, with captain Rodri receiving the Golden Ball as the competition’s best player.