{"id":40006,"date":"2026-07-19T17:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T15:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=40006"},"modified":"2026-07-19T17:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T15:22:15","slug":"mbappe-breaks-all-time-world-cup-scoring-record","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/mbappe-breaks-all-time-world-cup-scoring-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Mbapp\u00e9 breaks all-time World Cup scoring record \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>France captain Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 has officially become the highest-scoring player in World Cup history, netting his 22nd career tournament goal during a third-place play-off against England.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old forward scored twice in Les Bleus&#8217; 6-4 defeat on Saturday, pushing his individual tally for the 2026 tournament to 10 goals. His second-half strike moved him past Argentina&#8217;s Lionel Messi, who sits on 21 goals ahead of the final against Spain.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mbapp\u00e9 reached the historic milestone in just 22 tournament appearances across three World Cups, having scored four times during France&#8217;s victorious 2018 campaign and eight times at Qatar 2022.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Behind Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s 22 goals and Messi\u2019s 21 goals sits Germany\u2019s Miroslav Klose with 16 goals. Brazil&#8217;s Ronaldo follows with 15, while Germany\u2019s Gerd M\u00fcller and England&#8217;s Harry Kane are tied at 14 goals each. France\u2019s Just Fontaine remains close behind with 13 goals, and Brazil\u2019s Pel\u00e9 rounds out the top tier with 12.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters\/ ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":38985,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[305,20],"class_list":["post-40006","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-special-projects","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mbapp\u00e9 hits 22nd goal to become all-time World Cup top scorer","published_date":"2026-07-19 17:22:08","news_description":"Mbapp\u00e9 hits 22nd goal to become all-time World Cup top scorer","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40012,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40006\/revisions\/40012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=40006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}