{"id":913635,"date":"2026-07-05T06:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/913635\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T06:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:52:16","slug":"kylian-mbappe-scores-19th-world-cup-goal-continues-messi-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/913635\/","title":{"rendered":"Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 scores 19th World Cup goal, continues Messi chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 of France scored his 19th career World Cup<\/a> goal, finding the net on a penalty kick in the Round of 16 against Paraguay on Saturday and moving within one of record holder Lionel Messi of Argentina.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 stutter-stepped<\/a> on his way to his 19th goal in 19 World Cup appearances, beating Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill in the 70th minute to break a scoreless tie. France\u2019s captain was awarded the penalty when Diego Gomez was called for tripping after a video review.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said from the first day that he had the spirit. He gave all the athletic efforts,\u201d France coach Didier Deschamps said after Les Bleus won 1-0<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s a great top-notch player on the pitch. But when he speaks, he speaks for the entire group.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the seventh goal of this tournament for Mbapp\u00e9, matching Messi in the race for the Golden Boot for the World Cup\u2019s top scorer. Mbapp\u00e9 won that award four years ago in Qatar, but Messi and Argentina beat France in the final.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 is now the only player to score at least three goals in the knockout stage of three World Cups. On Saturday, he endured against perhaps the most physical opponent he\u2019s faced in this tournament.<\/p>\n

Tempers flared in the first half when Andr\u00e9s Cubas took down Mbapp\u00e9 and the teams briefly pushed and shoved each other. Mat\u00edas Galarza also threw his right elbow into Mbapp\u00e9 and sent him crashing to the grass.<\/p>\n

After Mbapp\u00e9 ignored Gill\u2019s attempt at a postgame handshake, the goalkeeper threw a ball at the France star\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew what kind of match it was going to be. We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it,\u201d Mbapp\u00e9 said in French. \u201cWe know how to play ugly football. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready. Even at that kind of game, we were better than them. That\u2019s their style of football. There\u2019s no right or wrong way to play the game. They tried to beat us that way, but we won.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the victory cleared the way for Mbapp\u00e9 to continue chasing Messi\u2019s career goals mark.<\/p>\n

Messi scored his 20th career World Cup goal<\/a> in Argentina\u2019s 3-2 win over Cape Verde on Friday night. The 39-year-old great also has goals in a record eight consecutive World Cup games.<\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s Erling Haaland and England\u2019s Harry Kane are next in the Golden Boot race with five goals each.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a tie in the Golden Boot standings when the tournament ends, FIFA will use assists as the first tiebreaker and fewest minutes played as the second tiebreaker. Mbapp\u00e9 has a 2-0 lead over Messi in assists.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See more of AP\u2019s World Cup coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 of France scored his 19th career World Cup goal, finding the net on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":913636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[369337,2841,353879,369336,45796,6061,156,363966,6062,5506,365172,5217,53137,2830,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-913635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andrs-cubas","tag-argentina","tag-didier-deschamps","tag-diego-gomez","tag-erling-haland","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-france","tag-france-national-soccer-team","tag-harry-kane","tag-lionel-messi","tag-orlando-gill","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-paraguay","tag-pennsylvania","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116866052723133715","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}