A Golden Boot chase for the ages has the ideal ending — it all comes down to the tournament’s final match.
Kylian Mbappe’s two goals in
France’s wild 6-4 loss to England
in the third-place play-off moved him two clear of Lionel Messi, but the Argentine still has one game to respond.
They’re also level on four assists, which is the first tie-breaker if goals are the same.
If goals and assists are identical, the award goes to the player with fewer minutes played.
Messi, 39, faces Spain in Sunday’s final and can still clinch the Golden Boot with the right combination of goals and tie-breakers.
Any other outcome means Mbappe, 27, will become the first player to win the prize twice.
And that’s before even considering their duel for the World Cup’s all-time scoring mark.
Mbappe now leads that race with 22 goals, one ahead of Messi.
Mbappe’s brace against England took him to 10 for this tournament — the most in a single World Cup this century. The last man to reach double figures at a men’s World Cup was Gerd Muller for West Germany in 1970.
For added context, before this tournament only eight players had ever scored eight or more in one World Cup — Muller, Just Fontaine, Sandor Kocsis, Ademir, Eusebio, Guillermo Stabile, Ronaldo and Mbappe.
The 2026 World Cup has certainly been a showcase for the stars.
England talisman Jude Bellingham’s goal against France moved him into third in the Golden Boot race on seven — the most an Englishman has scored at a single World Cup.
That nudged him ahead of Erling Haaland on the assists tie-breaker, with Three Lions captain Harry Kane one goal back alongside France’s Ousmane Dembele.