France booked their place in the World Cup semi-finals with a 2-0 quarter-final win over Morocco, yet the moment that will linger is one that got away.

Kylian Mbappé stepped up to a penalty and missed, denying himself one of the Mbappé World Cup goals that would have edged him closer to history and left the crowd holding its breath.

He recovered soon enough, finding the net in the 60th minute to take his World Cup tally to 20 goals. As widely reported, that leaves him just one behind Lionel Messi, who holds the all-time record with 21 goals but has needed 31 games to get there.

For Australian fans who watched the Socceroos exit earlier in the tournament, Mbappé’s pursuit is one of the more compelling subplots still running.

At 27, the France captain is chasing a record that once seemed the exclusive property of an older generation, and he is doing it at a pace nobody has matched.

Mbappé World Cup Goals By The Numbers

The raw numbers tell a striking story. Mbappé announced himself at the 2018 tournament in Russia with four goals, including one in the final as France beat Croatia 4-2, becoming only the second teenager after Pelé to score in a World Cup final.

Four years later in Qatar he added eight more, capped by a hat-trick in a final that Argentina eventually won on penalties.

This year he has already reached eight goals again, a return that has kept him at the front of the race and, as the New York Times has noted, made him France’s outright all-time leading scorer.

The Times also reported that Mbappé is now the first player to score two or more goals in five different World Cup matches. That is the kind of statistic that separates a very good tournament player from a genuinely historic one.

Mbappé World Cup Goals Versus Messi’s Tally

As of 11 July, Messi sits on 21 goals and Mbappé on 20. Ronaldo (15) remains just behind the two modern greats and Klose (16), with Gerd Müller next on 14 and Just Fontaine on 13 - all scored in a single tournament back in 1958, a record that still stands.

What is clearer is the Golden Boot picture. Mbappé was level with Messi at the top of this tournament’s scoring chart, with Norway’s Erling Haaland just behind on seven, though Mbappé edges the tie on assists.

The symmetry with Messi has become almost eerie. As the football page Oh My Goal observed, both men against their respective opponents missed a penalty, then scored, then laid on an assist, a mirror image that seems to suggest the torch is passing in real time.

Mbappé World Cup Goals And Pelé’s Three Titles

Beyond Messi lies an even loftier marker. Only one footballer, Pelé, has ever won three World Cups, and France reaching a third consecutive final would give Mbappé the platform to chase that company alongside a possible second winner’s medal.

History offers some perspective on how rare that is. Miroslav Klose held the World Cup record with 16 goals (ahead of Ronaldo’s 15 and Gerd Müller’s 14) until Messi broke it, now holding the all-time mark at 21. That puts the scale of Mbappé’s 20 in fresh relief.

One more Mbappé World Cup goal would draw him level with Messi’s record, with a second goal giving him outright ownership.

At 27, with at least one more tournament plausibly ahead of him, the harder question is whether he can eventually match Pelé’s three titles, and that debate, mercifully, is one the football will settle.