Both Argentina and France were beating rivals in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 until reaching the final of the tournament, which will give the winning team its third world title. Beyond having different players of great importance and performance throughout this championship, without a doubt, the brightest have been Lionel Messi (Argentina) and Kylian Mbappe (France), who scored five goals each so far in the competition (top strikers). Of course, in addition to the football battle between their teams, there is also a combat to see who will win the Ballon d’Or (Top Goalscorer). In England, the bookmakers favor Messi over Mbappe. They will even decide who will be the MVP of the World Cup.
To understand a little more about all these alternatives at stake, DataFactory -a benchmark firm, with 20+ years of experience in content creation and SEO positioning for sports betting sites- generated a complete report with the main statistics of both superstars. G&M News shares this data here in advance of what will be the most anticipated duel in the world of football.
There have been 3 matches so far between Messi and Mbappe at the club and national team level, with the French attacker undefeated against the Argentine footballer (2MW-1MD). They met in France-Argentina (4-3 in Russia 2018) and in 2 duels between FC Barcelona v Paris Saint-Germain (1-4 and 1-1 in the 2020/21 UEFA Champions League). In these previous matches, there were 2 goals and 2 assists from Messi and 6 goals from Mbappe.
THE ARGENTINIAN STAR AIMS TO FULFIL HIS LAST DREAM
Lionel Messi, the number 10 of the Argentine National Team, will play his second FIFA World Cup final of his career (Brazil 2014 and Qatar 2022). At the age of 35, he’s participating at his fifth and last World Cup, in which he has been having his best performance, with 5 goals and 3 assists in the tournament. He played the 6 matches of this Cup and completed 648 minutes. Together with Emiliano Martinez and Nicoaás Otamendi, they are the Argentinians with the most playing minutes in the tournament.
In a fabulous run, Messi scored and assisted in the group stage, scored in the Round of 16, and netted and assisted in the Quarterfinals and Semifinals of this World Cup. He opened the scoring in 4 of 6 Argentina’s games (vs. Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Australia and Croatia). He could become the first footballer in history to score in the group stage, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Final in a single edition of the tournament.
With the match against France, he will complete 26 appearances in the FIFA World Cup, in which he scored 11 goals in 5 different editions, surpassing the German Lothar Matthäus (25 MP) in appearances, with whom he shares the record. Thus, he will keep the historical mark of being the player with the most presences in the Cup. He had 23 games as a starter (2 as a substitute) and 18 as captain in FIFA World Cups (0.44 goal average). He scored against opponents from UEFA (4), AFC (3), CAF (3) and CONCACAF (1). In addition to his 5 goals and 3 assists, Messi leads the overall shooting categories (28) in the current FIFA World Cup (5 goals, 13 shots on target and 10 deflected). Likewise, he presents the best overall records in terms of shots on goal (13), fouls received (19) and penalty scores (3).
According to DataFactory statistics, Messi made 263 correct passes and achieved 87% passing accuracy in his 6 appearances in the current tournament. In addition to being the top scorer in the World Cup along with Mbappe, he leads the global ranking of assists with 3, along with Antoine Griezmann (France), Harry Kane (England) and Bruno Fernandes (Portugal). He is the all-time top scorer for the Argentine National Team (11) in the FIFA World Cups, after surpassing Gabriel Batistuta (10). He equaled the numbers of the German Jürgen Klinsmann and the Hungarian Sandor Kocsis in the History of the tournament, and is one shout away from reaching the Brazilian Pele in the Top 5 of all-time scorers. During 2022, Messi scored 16 goals for the Argentine National Team (including all competitions). He registers 15 goals and 5 assists in his last 11 appearances with the Argentina National Team. He is the Argentinian with the most goals scored (96) and matches played (171) in the History of the National Team.
AN UNSTOPPABLE SPRINTER WHO WANTS MORE GLORY
On his side, Kylian Mbappe (also with the 10 on his back, but from the French National Team) will be present in his second FIFA World Cup final (Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022). He scored 1 goal in the last final against Croatia, became champion and was chosen the Best Young Player of Russia 2018. Only 4 players hold the record of having scored in 2 World Cup finals: the Brazilians Vavá (1958 and 1962) and Pelé (1958 and 1970), the German Paul Breitner (1974 and 1982) and the Frenchman Zinedine Zidane (1998 and 2006).
At 23 years and 364 days, Mbappe could become the youngest player to score in more than one FIFA World Cup final. He registers 9 goals, 3 assists and 1 title in 13 appearances in FIFA World Cups (11 MP as a starter). He scored against opponents from UEFA (5), CONMEBOL (3) and AFC (1). If he scores 1 more goal, he could match historical soccer legends in the World Cups, such as Gabriel Batistuta (Argentina), Teófilo Cubillas (Peru), Grzegorz Lato (Poland), Gary Lineker (England), Thomas Müller (Germany) and Helmut Rahn (Germany), all with 10 goals.
Mbappe will complete 14 matches in the FIFA World Cup and will reach the line of Michel Platini in the French team, who achieved this figure between the editions of Argentina 1978 (3), Spain 1982 (5) and Mexico 1986 (6). The PSG player is the 2nd all-time leading scorer for France in the FIFA World Cup (9), behind Just Fontaine (13). He managed to score 3 doubles in FIFA World Cups (vs. Argentina, in Russia 2018 and vs. Denmark and Poland, in Qatar 2022). The French star leads the ranking of scorers (5) in Qatar 2022 together with Messi and makes up the general shooting podium of the current tournament (24), behind the Argentine attacker (28) and above the Croatian Ivan Perisic (17). His 5 goals in the current edition were scored in the second half and, together with the Argentinian Julian Alvarez, they are the top play scorers (4) in the current competition.