Real Madrid forward has hit incredible numbers but there is still more to come if he maintains his current scoring trajectory
Kylian Mbappe recently became the youngest player to reach 400 career goals after scoring a brace in France’s World Cup qualifying game against Azerbaijan.
At 26, there is already so much the Frenchman has achieved. He is Paris Saint-Germain’s highest goalscorer at 220 goals, ahead of Edison Cavani and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Last season he won the Pichichi award and European Golden Boot in his debut season at Real Madrid, becoming the first player to earn that honour in his first campaign for the club, a feat not even Cristiano Ronaldo or Hugo Sanchez managed to achieve (the latter won the Pichichi but not the Golden Boot).
But there is still more to come if Mbappe maintains this trajectory. So what could he do next?
The immediate record to break is a place as France’s all-time highest goalscorer. Mbappe has 55 goals, just two short of Olivier Giroud, who currently holds the honour. The former Arsenal and Chelsea striker has retired, meaning that Mbappe could break it as soon as March 2026, when the next international window rolls by.
Other significant ones might be much trickier. Mbappe has scored 60 goals in 89 Champions League appearances, meaning he is still a long way off from reaching the top of the all-time scorers’ chart. Ronaldo leads the pack with 140 goals, followed by Lionel Messi at 129. With the Frenchman averaging roughly a goal a game in Europe, it would still take him at least the next six seasons before he can reach Ronaldo’s record. That could still be achievable for Mbappe in his mid-thirties, but not any time soon.
Even steeper is the challenge of meeting Messi’s record of the most goals in Europe’s top five leagues (La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga and Premier League). The Argentinian’s tally stands at 496 goals, scored while playing for Barcelona and PSG.
Ronaldo trails by just a solitary goal at 495, scored for Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus. Mbappe’s current total is 233. At his age, Messi had scored only nine more. So there is a chance that Mbappe could surpass this outrageous tally, but he would need to maintain his current scoring rate, or even increase it, for 10 more years.
Of course that is a considerable feat and one for the future. He doesn’t need to look too much towards it at present, although the Frenchman has made clear that he is highly ambitious. After recording 400 goals at the weekend, Mbappe said: “Four hundred goals don’t impress people. I want to leave my mark on football history, so I have to score at least 400 more.
“There’s one with more than 950 goals, another with over 900. Four hundred is not enough to remain in the circle of players who surprise people.”
